Maya crypto: buying from ₱1, real costs and sending out

Reviewed by the Crypto Philippines Editorial TeamUpdated September 28, 2026 · 9 min read

Maya crypto is the buy-and-sell crypto feature inside the Maya app. With a verified account you can buy Bitcoin, Ether, USDT and roughly 30 other tokens from as little as ₱1. Maya charges no transaction fee but earns on the spread, and it now lets you send and receive coins to and from outside wallets.

What sets Maya apart from most e-wallets is the licence. Maya Philippines, Inc. is on the BSP’s list of virtual asset service providers in its own name, while GCash runs its crypto through a partner. For you that makes little difference day to day, but it does mean the company you deal with is the one the regulator supervises for crypto.

Is Maya crypto legit? The licence behind it

Maya Philippines, Inc. appears on the BSP list of licensed VASPs (as of 15 July 2026) with a registered address on the 9th floor of the Launchpad Building, Reliance Street, Mandaluyong City. Maya’s own crypto page adds that Maya Philippines, Inc. and Maya Bank, Inc. are both regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Only nine firms held an active VASP licence on that list, and the BSP has frozen new licences indefinitely, so this is not a status that other e-wallets can easily copy. Our explainer on crypto regulations in the Philippines covers why.

A licence tells you the company must follow anti-money-laundering rules, verify its customers and answer to a regulator you can complain to. It does not protect the value of your coins. Maya says so itself on the crypto page: crypto is volatile, and past performance does not guarantee future returns. For the full picture of who else is licensed and who has been blocked, see our licensed crypto exchanges list.

If you knew the app as PayMaya, it is the same service. PayMaya rebranded as Maya, so searches for “buy crypto PayMaya” lead to the same Crypto tab.

How to buy crypto in Maya

Maya’s crypto page promises you can “own crypto with just an ID and ₱1”, and the flow is short. Make sure your account is verified with a valid government ID first, and that your Maya Wallet has pesos. You can cash in through bank transfer, partner stores or any of the channels Maya lists on its cash-in page.

1. Log in and tap Crypto

   Open the Maya app and choose Crypto from the main screen. The first time, you may be asked to accept the crypto terms.

2. Tap Buy on the crypto dashboard

   The dashboard shows your portfolio and the full list under All Crypto.

3. Select a coin

   Check the coin details page: price, chart and the buy and sell price. The gap between those two is your cost.

4. Enter an amount and confirm

   Type the peso amount, from ₱1 upward, review the quote and confirm. The coin appears in My Portfolio.

Selling is the mirror image: open the coin, tap Sell, and the pesos go straight to your Maya Wallet, where Maya says you can “convert your crypto to cash”. From there you can transfer to a bank by InstaPay or cash out at a partner. If you are new to crypto altogether, our guide on how to buy Bitcoin in the Philippines walks through the basics before you commit real money.

Maya crypto fees: “no transaction fees” explained

Maya’s headline is accurate as far as it goes: there is no separate transaction fee on buys or sells. The cost is in the spread, the difference between the price at which Maya sells you a coin and the price at which it buys it back. Maya does not publish its spread, and neither does GCash, so the only way to measure it is to open a coin and compare both prices at the same moment.

Here is a simple test. Say the app quotes a buy price and a sell price for Bitcoin that are 2% apart. If you buy ₱1,000 and sell a minute later, you would get back roughly ₱980 even though the market didn’t move. On a licensed order book like Coins.ph, the USDT/PHP gap was a single centavo on 28 September 2026. That comparison is why the “no fees” line matters less than it seems. Our crypto fees and spreads guide shows how to compare platforms fairly.

Two other costs are easy to miss. Cash-in through over-the-counter partners is free up to ₱8,000 a month and then carries a 2% convenience fee, according to Maya’s cash-in page. And sending crypto to an outside wallet costs a blockchain network fee, which the app shows before you confirm.

Which coins Maya lists

Maya’s crypto page names “major coins like BTC, ETH, SOL, QNT, and more” without giving a total. The most recent count we could find comes from BitPinas, which reported 33 tokens as of 18 February 2026, including USDC, USDT, PAXG, BNB, XRP, SUI, NEAR, OP, and meme tokens WIF, BONK and PEPE. That figure is from a secondary source; we could not confirm it on Maya’s help centre, which did not load for us. Check the All Crypto list in the app for the current line-up.

If you ever search “Maya crypto gone” or “missing”, start with the basics: update the app, log out and back in, and look under My Portfolio rather than the main wallet screen. Read any in-app messages, and contact Maya support if your holdings still don’t appear.

Maya crypto send and receive

Maya now supports transfers to and from outside blockchain wallets, which makes it far more useful than a closed loop app. According to Maya’s crypto page, receiving works in two ways. Either open a coin from My Portfolio or All Crypto, tap the More options icon (⋯) and choose Receive, or tap More options on the dashboard, choose Receive and then the coin. In both cases you then select the network, and Maya generates a QR code and a wallet address you can share or copy.

Sending works the other way: paste the destination address, choose the same network the receiving wallet shows, add a memo or tag if the destination requires one, and review the network fee before confirming. Maya warns users to select the correct blockchain network, and that warning deserves to be taken literally. USDT on one chain sent to an address on another may simply not arrive (our USDT guide explains the networks). For any new address, send a small test first. If you are moving coins to cash them out elsewhere, our guide to selling crypto for cash in the Philippines lists the licensed exits.

We do not recommend sending coins from Maya to exchanges the SEC has flagged or the NTC has blocked, such as Binance, OKX or Bybit. And never send crypto to someone who contacted you first with an investment offer; our guide to crypto scams in the Philippines shows the patterns to watch for.

Maya vs GCrypto vs Coins.ph

Most people choosing Maya are really choosing between e-wallets. Here is how the three most-used local options compare on the points that matter for a first purchase.

If you already live in GCash, read our GCash crypto guide for its limits and send fees. If you want to see every option ranked, our page on the best crypto exchanges in the Philippines scores ten platforms on licence, cost and payment methods.

Is it good to buy crypto in Maya?

For a first purchase, yes. The ₱1 minimum means you can learn how buying, selling and sending feel without risking real money, and a regulated company sits behind the app. Maya also rates well with users: 4.62 on the Philippine App Store from about 235,000 ratings when we checked on 28 September 2026.

For larger amounts, the picture changes. Maya does not publish its crypto limits on the crypto page, so check the limits of your own account level in the app before planning a big trade. The spread is unknown until you look, and the coin list is shorter than on a full exchange. A sensible pattern many Filipinos follow is to experiment in Maya, then move to an order-book exchange once trades reach tens of thousands of pesos. Whatever you do, keep a record of each purchase and sale with dates and peso values, since gains can have tax consequences. Our crypto tax guide explains what to keep.