Unregulated crypto platforms spur crimes

Being a borderless, decentralized system meant to redefine trust, break down financial barriers, and give power back to the people, cryptocurrencies were once regarded as an equalizer. Several research have shown that cryptocurrencies have the power to hasten and reduce the cost of remittances of overseas workers, provide fairer access to opportunities, and ramp up borderless commerce.

However, there’s a darker side to crypto that we are failing to address.

In the Philippines, unregulated cryptocurrency platforms have become the financial backbone of organized crime, fueling kidnappings, human trafficking, online scams, and underground operations that thrive in the shadows of our digital economy. These platforms, operating without regulatory oversight, are now the go-to infrastructure for organized crime syndicates that operate within — and far beyond — our borders.

Unwittingly, these unregulated exchanges allow criminals to move millions in illicit funds, quickly and invisibly, disregarding know-your-customer checks and anti-money laundering safeguards. Fueled by these platforms, we have fallen deep into a crime epidemic. And unless we act urgently, we risk letting one of the most revolutionary tools of our time be turned against the very people it was meant to empower.

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2024 alone, Filipinos lost an estimated P460 billion to online crime, according to data from Global Anti-Scam Alliance. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) also recorded P5.82 billion in cybercrime losses from supervised institutions — a 212 percent jump from the year before. Criminal syndicates and bad actors are taking advantage of loopholes around unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges, as they offer zero consumer protection and often ignore cease-and-desist orders with alarming ease.

What’s worse is that some platforms are offering tools designed to erase digital footprints altogether — coin mixers, privacy tokens, and advanced obfuscation features that help criminals disappear into the blockchain. These foreign platforms that operate without regulatory oversight hide behind jurisdictional ambiguity and offshore privacy laws. They don’t respond to regulatory orders and simply don’t cooperate with law enforcement.

Despite public advisories, cease-and-desist orders, and even blocking directives from the National Telecommunications Commission, these rogue exchanges continue to operate with impunity. And the repercussions have gone beyond finance. They have become more violent.

Take the case of businessman Anson Que, whose P200-million ransom was converted to cryptocurrency to avoid tracing. This systemic weakness creates the perfect environment for criminals to thrive, turning the Philippines into a staging ground for global digitally enabled crimes.

If left unaddressed, we risk becoming not just a victim, but an enabler — an unwitting launchpad for syndicates that prey on regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement.

We need an immediate, coordinated crackdown from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the BSP, and other relevant agencies. That means delisting unauthorized crypto apps from app stores and enforcing real-time ISP-level blocks.

We also have to start investing in advanced cybercrime detection tools, as the tactics of cybercriminals continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence has already changed the game, enabling phishing attacks that sound legitimate and deepfakes that’s hard to detect. Furthermore, we need to prioritize nationwide digital literacy. Most scams succeed not because they are brilliant — but because the average user doesn’t know what to watch out for.

So the only way to stay ahead is through a strong collaboration among government, industry, and the public. We must treat this as a national economic and security concern and not just a tech issue. The longer we allow it to persist, the more we fall deeper into the digitally enabled crime epidemic.