Bitcoin ATM Philippines: what’s real, what’s gone and what to use instead

Reviewed by the Crypto Philippines Editorial TeamUpdated September 28, 2026 · 12 min read

Is there a Bitcoin ATM in the Philippines? Not one you can count on. Only three machines were ever documented, all in Makati or Ortigas between 2014 and 2019, and no operator has confirmed a working unit in recent years. For cash, the realistic routes are staffed Moneybees counters, a ₱25 pawnshop cash-in to Coins.ph, or GCash and Maya over-the-counter cash-in.

That answer surprises people. Chainalysis ranked the Philippines 9th in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, millions of Filipinos hold crypto in GCash, Maya or Coins.ph, and yet the physical crypto ATM that tourists expect to find in a mall barely exists here. This page explains why, what the online ATM maps are really showing you, what those machines charged when they worked, and where to take your cash instead. If you only want the cheapest place to buy, jump to our list of the best crypto exchanges in the Philippines.

Is there a Bitcoin ATM in the Philippines right now?

We checked in September 2026. Coin ATM Radar, the directory most people land on when they search “crypto ATM Philippines”, blocked automated and browser access to its Philippines page, so we could not read a current total. We read the archived copies instead, went through the operator websites, the BSP list of licensed virtual asset service providers and the local press.

The result is thin. Three physical machines appear in the record. None of them has been confirmed as working by its operator in 2024, 2025 or 2026, and we found no news of any new Bitcoin ATM installed anywhere in the country since 2019. We are not saying every machine is switched off; we are saying nobody who runs one has told the public that it is on. Until that changes, treat any “Bitcoin ATM near me” result in the Philippines as unverified.

A short history of Bitcoin ATMs in the Philippines

The story is short, and almost all of it happened in one city. Makati hosted the first machine, the first two-way machine and, depending on which report you believe, the bank machine too. Our Makati crypto guide covers the neighbourhood side; here is the timeline.

1. June 2014First Bitcoin ATM, one-way only

   Satoshi Citadel Industries and Bitmarket.ph brought in an open-source Skyhook machine that only sold Bitcoin for cash. BitPinas later placed it at GC Corporate Plaza, Legaspi Village, Makati, with no ID check. It is historical and presumed inactive.

2. May 2015First two-way machine at Sunette Tower

   A machine in the Sunette Tower lobby on Durban Street, Poblacion, Makati, bought and sold Bitcoin. Coin ATM Radar lists it as a General Bytes unit. BitPinas reported a “4% top up” in 2017. Current status unverified.

3. Feb–Apr 2019UnionBank’s two-way ATM

   UnionBank installed a Lamassu machine with a Coins.ph back end, open only to UnionBank account holders using their account number and two OTPs. Reports disagree on whether it stood in Ortigas or at The ARK on Ayala Avenue. Current status unverified.

4. March 2019BSP sets the rules

   The BSP said crypto ATM operators must be registered virtual currency exchanges, follow anti-money-laundering rules and provide consumer protection and support.

5. Sept 2022 → Sept 2025Licensing freeze, then indefinite

   The BSP stopped accepting new virtual asset licence applications from 1 September 2022 for three years, then extended the freeze with no end date from 1 September 2025.

When BitPinas tested the UnionBank machine in March 2019, it put in ₱500 and received ₱496 worth of Bitcoin. That is the best-documented two-way Bitcoin ATM experience in the country, and it came with a catch: without a UnionBank account you could not use it at all. UnionBank has since moved crypto into its app instead, rolling out an in-app crypto wallet in August 2025 for customers who pass a suitability assessment.

What the ATM maps actually count

Here is where most confusion comes from. Coin ATM Radar’s Philippines page does not only count machines. Its headline is “Bitcoin ATMs / Tellers”, and a teller is a person behind a counter. In the Philippines, most of those listings are staffed Moneybees counters inside money changers and pawnshops.

Take the May 2020 snapshot: of the four listings, the single Quezon City entry was Psulit Money Changer, a teller quoting 1% on both sides, not a machine. By November 2021 the total had grown to 12, with eight under “Manila” (a label that likely covers Metro Manila as a whole), two in Taguig and one each in Parañaque and Pasay. That growth matches the Moneybees expansion, not a wave of new hardware. All of these figures are aggregator data, unverified by any operator, and the 2026 count could not be retrieved.

So when a map shows a Bitcoin ATM in Metro Manila, the useful question is not “how far is it?” but “is it a machine or a counter, and who runs it?” A counter can be perfectly good. It just works differently: office hours, a queue, an ID check and a person who sends the coins to your wallet.

Why nobody is installing new crypto ATMs

A crypto ATM is not just a vending machine. Swapping pesos for crypto is a regulated activity, and in March 2019 the BSP made clear that ATM operators must be licensed, follow anti-money-laundering rules, control their technology risk and give customers proper support. BSP Circular 1108 (2021) then put every fiat-to-crypto service under the virtual asset service provider (VASP) licence.

The door to that licence is closed. The BSP froze new VASP applications from September 2022, and in September 2025 the Monetary Board extended the freeze indefinitely, citing consumer protection and cybercrime concerns. As of 15 July 2026 the BSP list shows six active non-bank VASPs (Coins.ph, Maya, Moneybees, PDAX, TopJuan and WIBS PHP) and two bank VASPs (GoTyme and UnionBank). A new ATM network would have to be run by one of them or as their agent. Our guide to licensed crypto exchanges in the Philippines lists them in full.

Economics finish the job. A resident with ₱5,000 can cash in at one of thousands of pawnshops for ₱25 or at a GCash partner outlet for free up to a monthly threshold, then buy inside an app at a far tighter price than any machine. The only people a 10% machine really serves are those who can’t or won’t open an app account, and that is a group regulators are keen not to serve anonymously.

Bitcoin ATM fees and limits: what the numbers say

There is no current Philippine Bitcoin ATM fee to quote, because there is no operator publishing one. What exists are historical readings, which we label clearly:

• Sunette Tower, 2017: a “4% top up” fee and no KYC, per BitPinas.
• Sunette Tower, May 2020: buy at ₱100 plus 10–11%, sell at ₱100 plus 4–6%, according to an archived Coin ATM Radar page (aggregator data).
• UnionBank, 2019: ₱500 in, ₱496 of Bitcoin out in BitPinas’s test. Limits were described as “unclear”.

Put that 2020 reading into pesos. Buying ₱5,000 of Bitcoin at ₱100 plus 10% would have cost about ₱600 in fees, roughly 12% of your money. The same ₱5,000 cashed in at a pawnshop to Coins.ph costs ₱25, and the in-app spread on a liquid coin is usually a fraction of that machine markup. Our crypto fees and spreads guide shows how to compare the real price.

On limits, the global trend is tightening. In June 2025 Australia’s financial intelligence regulator AUSTRAC capped cash deposits and withdrawals at crypto ATMs at A$5,000 and ordered scam warnings, CoinDesk reported, after finding that users over 50 made 72% of crypto ATM transactions. In the United States, the FTC reported US$65 million in fraud losses through Bitcoin ATMs in the first half of 2024 alone, with a median loss of US$10,000. Machines are fast and hard to reverse, which is exactly why scammers tell victims to use them.

A two-way Bitcoin ATM, one that also pays out pesos when you sell, would face the same rules in reverse. Any payout above ₱500,000 already triggers enhanced due diligence under the BSP’s VASP rules and must go by check or bank credit, not cash. Selling is covered in our guide to selling crypto for cash in the Philippines.

Bitcoin ATM near me: how to check a listing before you travel

Say a map shows a “Bitcoin ATM” 20 minutes away in Pasay or Taguig. Before you get in a Grab with a wallet full of cash, do four things:

1. Find out what it is. On Coin ATM Radar, check whether the listing says ATM or teller. If it is a teller, look for the business on the operator’s own site; Moneybees keeps an outlet list with addresses and hours.

2. Check the date. Many Philippine listings and blog posts date from 2017 to 2021. A pin with no recent review or photo is a guess, not a location.

3. Call ahead. Ask whether crypto service is running today, which coins they handle, what ID they need and whether there is a minimum. Pawnshop counters often keep weekday office hours only; the Okada Manila counter in Parañaque is the one 24-hour exception on the Moneybees list, and it sits in a VIP area.

4. Confirm the operator is licensed. The only names that can legally run peso-to-crypto services are on the BSP list. If a “Bitcoin ATM” or “crypto exchange shop” can’t tell you which licensed provider it works with, walk away.

Cash alternatives that work today

The practical question behind most ATM searches is “how do I turn cash into crypto?” These are the routes we could verify, compared with the last known machine reading.

*GCash figures come from GCash Help Center search snippets; the page itself could not be loaded, so re-check in the app.

Moneybees counters are the nearest thing to a Bitcoin ATM. Moneybees is a BSP-licensed VASP, and its partner money changers and pawnshops take your pesos and send the crypto straight to your wallet. The outlet page lists 29 counters, about 23 of them in Metro Manila or next door in Cainta, and Moneybees announced crypto service across 97 Tambunting pawnshop branches in April 2024. It advertises no fees; the cost is built into the quoted rate, which it doesn’t publish in advance.

Pawnshop cash-in to Coins.ph is the cheapest cash route for small amounts. You generate a reference in the app, pay at the counter and the pesos arrive in about 10 minutes, for ₱25 at every partner. Note that 7-Eleven CLiQQ cash-in to Coins.ph has been discontinued.

GCash or Maya over the counter suits anyone who already uses the e-wallet. Load cash at a partner outlet, then buy inside GCrypto or Maya Crypto. We walk through all of these, with limits and ID requirements, in our guide to buying crypto with cash in the Philippines, and the in-app steps are in our GCash crypto guide.

Bitcoin ATM in Metro Manila and other cities

Searches like “Bitcoin ATM Manila” or “Bitcoin ATM Cebu” have the same honest answer: no confirmed machines, but real counters in some places. Makati has the historical machines and six listed Moneybees counters. Quezon City has the most counters of any city, seven, including Trinoma and Eastwood. Taguig has three around BGC and McKinley Hill. Pasig’s Ortigas Center hosts UnionBank and PDAX offices, but the Moneybees “Ortigas” counter is actually in Cainta. The only Cebu counter is in Liloan, about 15 km north of Cebu City, and Davao City has two.

Each city guide lists what we could verify there: Manila, Makati, Pasig and Ortigas, Taguig and BGC, Quezon City, Cebu City and Davao City.

If you are a visitor arriving with cash and no local app, one more option: a global exchange such as CEX.IO accepts Visa and Mastercard from Filipino users and lists more than 300 coins. It is registered with FinCEN in the US and with the Bank of Spain, but it is not BSP-licensed and has no peso, GCash or InstaPay rails, so it replaces the machine for buying, not for getting pesos out.