The Philippine Digital Asset Exchange, a cryptocurrency trading platform licensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, now has more than 450,000 users.
PDAX chief executive Nichel Gaba said the existence of many crypto-curious Filipinos explains why traders in their platform increased from 20,000 in the second half of 2019 to almost 500,000 today.
“I think Filipinos are naturally receptive to new technology. I think naturally, we’re interested, we’re eager to learn, we’re curious, and cryptocurrencies have been a very good investment opportunity especially during the pandemic when a lot of digital platforms were also becoming more mainstream,” Gaba told Manila Standard.
Gaba emphasized the importance of making digital assets more accessible to Filipinos who are having difficulties in participating in cryptocurrency markets.
“There are still a lot of difficulties in actually buying and selling cryptocurrencies. These are the things that PDAX is trying to solve, and we’re also eager to list more and more of these digital assets so that we can make a lot of these decentralized products and services available to Filipinos,” he said.
PDAX is offering seven new cryptocurrencies. Since the platform’s founding in 2018, PDAX has offered seven currencies including, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Tether, Bitcoin Cash and USD Coin.
Meanwhile, the new cryptocurrencies are Chainlink, Enjin, Basic Attention Token, Graph, Compound, Aave and Uniswap.
PDAX chief operating officer Kyle Kua said the additional coins are part of their vision to enable Filipinos to easily invest in digital assets.
“Our team is committed to building the cryptocurrency ecosystem here in the Philippines, so introducing new coins is just part of that,” Kua said.
Gaba said PDAX saw a greater volume in trading ether in the first half of 2021.
“Even though there are still a lot of bitcoin traders, we saw a lot of volumes in ether. Ethereum is now the most widely-traded cryptocurrency in PDAX. In terms of volume, we saw more than 100 million dollars during the first months of 2021,” he said.
PDAX plans to offer more services in the future.
“Part of PDAX’s mission is to improve the way we access investment products and financial services through blockchain technology, and we can expect PDAX to keep rolling out new products that make it easier for Filipinos to invest and trade,” Gaba said.