Moneybees review: the practical way to trade crypto for cash in hand

Reviewed by the Crypto Philippines Editorial TeamUpdated September 28, 2026 · 11 min read

Our Moneybees review in one line: it is a legitimate, BSP-licensed way to swap pesos for crypto in person, with daily limits from ₱200,000 to over ₱5 million by ID level, and its price is a quoted rate rather than a fee you can see. We score it 7.2/10, low on transparency and high on usefulness for people who hold cash.

This review is based on the Moneybees website and outlets page, the BSP’s own VASP list, and press coverage, all read on 29 September 2026. We did not visit a counter or trade with real money, so where a detail depends on what happens at the till we say so. If you want the step-by-step version of a cash purchase, our guide to buying crypto with cash covers every route; this page judges Moneybees itself.

Verdict: a useful counter, an opaque price

Moneybees is the closest thing the Philippines has to a Bitcoin ATM that actually works, because a person stands where the machine would be. That matters more than it sounds. Most Filipino crypto apps assume you have a bank account, a verified e-wallet or a card. Moneybees assumes you have cash and an ID. For a freelancer paid in USDT who needs pesos in hand, or someone who sold a motorbike and wants coins without a bank hop, that is the whole point.

The weak spot is price. Moneybees advertises that there are “absolutely no additional fees”, and that is probably true in the literal sense: there is no line item. But the rate you are quoted contains the margin, and Moneybees does not publish that margin, its minimums or a fee table. You find the cost only by comparing the quote with a live price. That is why it scores 7.2/10 rather than higher. The weights behind every score are on our how we rate exchanges page.

Is Moneybees licensed? Checked against the BSP list

Yes. We opened the BSP’s list of virtual asset service providers, headed “As of 15 July 2026”, and Moneybees Forex Corp. sits third among the active non-bank VASPs, with its address at 4/F Unit C and D, Commerce and Industry Plaza Building, 1030 Campus Avenue, McKinley Hill, Taguig. Its website states an MSB registration number of 60-00816-0-00000 and says the company is also registered with the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

What the licence means in practice: Moneybees must run KYC, monitor transactions and answer to the BSP. What it does not mean: deposit insurance, price protection or a guarantee that a specific counter is open. Crypto held after you receive it is yours to protect. The BSP has frozen new VASP licences indefinitely since September 2025, so Moneybees belongs to a very small club; the wider picture is in our list of licensed crypto exchanges and the regulations guide.

You can repeat this check yourself in two minutes. Download the PDF, find the company name and confirm that the address matches the one on the website. If a “Moneybees agent” contacts you on Facebook or Telegram, ask for the outlet on the official page rather than trusting a chat.

How buying and selling works at a counter

According to the Moneybees site, buying means paying pesos and receiving crypto “directly” in the wallet you name. Selling is the reverse: you send crypto to a Moneybees wallet and receive pesos by bank transfer or as cash at an outlet. The company also mentions an online trading desk, though we found no separate app or public rules for it, so this review is about the counters.

Coins are the other unknown. The homepage points to a rates page for “supported cryptos” but does not list them, and the rates address we tried returned an error. The best confirmed list comes from the April 2024 Tambunting announcement: BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT and BCH. Older aggregator listings for Moneybees tellers also show DOGE and DASH, which we could not confirm on an official page. If you need a specific coin, ask before you travel.

What it costs: “no additional fees” and the hidden spread

Every crypto shop earns a margin somewhere. Moneybees puts it in the price. There is nothing wrong with that, and GCash, Maya and UnionBank do the same, but it means the word “free” tells you little. What matters is how far the quote sits from the market.

We have no measured spread for Moneybees today. The only figure we found is an archived aggregator reading from May 2020 showing the Psulit teller in Quezon City at 1% on both sides; the operator never confirmed it and it is six years old. Treat it as a hint, not a price list. To find the real number, do this before you pay: open a licensed app, note the price of the coin in pesos, ask the teller for the quote for the same coin and amount, and divide the difference by the price. A 1% gap on ₱50,000 is ₱500. A 3% gap is ₱1,500, and at that point Coins.ph pawnshop cash-in at ₱25 flat plus an in-app purchase looks much cheaper, although it caps out at about ₱50,000 per transaction.

The one advantage of a quoted rate is that you can walk away. Nobody can add a fee after you have agreed the number, and you can ask for the quote in writing or on your phone screen.

Limits and ID levels

Moneybees ties the daily limit to how much proof you give. The levels below come from the company’s homepage.

A few reading notes. First, the limit is per day, so a person who buys ₱150,000 in the morning has ₱50,000 left at Level 1. Second, high limits come with paperwork. Under anti-money-laundering rules, cash deals above ₱500,000 count as covered transactions that must be reported to the AMLC, so a counter that asks where your money came from is doing its job. Third, Moneybees does not publish a minimum trade, and we did not test one. Fourth, tax is your job: a receipt from the counter is your record, and our crypto tax guide explains what to keep.

Where the counters are, and where they are not

The Moneybees outlets page listed 29 counters when we read it on 29 September 2026. Other checks we came across counted anywhere from 31 to 35, so the safe summary is “around 30, check the outlets page”. Its footer still says 2023 and some counters are missing from the list. The homepage mentions a Psulit branch at Solaire in Entertainment City, Parañaque, that the outlets page does not include, and a 2024 press report of a Moneybees hub at Molito, Alabang, is not there either.

The breakdown we counted: 21 counters in Metro Manila (seven in Quezon City, six in Makati, three in Taguig, three in Parañaque, one each in Pasay and Caloocan), two in Rizal (Antipolo and Cainta), two in Davao City, one in Liloan in Cebu, one in Orani, Bataan, and two in Bato, Camarines Sur. Open hours vary. Alphaland Southgate in Makati and Newport Mall in Pasay run daily until 9 pm, the Okada Manila counter is listed as 24 hours, and the Tambunting pawnshop branches are typically weekdays, 8 am to 5 pm. Market! Market! in BGC is closed on Sundays and holidays.

What is missing matters as much as what is listed. There is no counter in Cebu City proper (Liloan is a town to the north), and none in Iloilo, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, Angeles or Batangas that we could find. For city detail see our pages on Makati, Taguig and BGC, Quezon City, Cebu and Davao.

What to bring to a Moneybees counter

Preparation saves more time than any tip about rates. Do these in order.

1. A valid government ID, plus extras for higher levels

   One ID covers Level 1. Bring proof of address (a utility bill or bank statement) if you plan to exceed ₱200,000, proof of income beyond ₱1 million, and source-of-funds documents above ₱5 million.

2. Your receiving wallet address as a QR code

   Open the receive screen for the exact coin and network, for example USDT on TRC-20 or Bitcoin on-chain. A wrong network can mean lost coins.

3. A live price on your phone

   Open a licensed app and note the price so you can measure the counter’s quote in percentage terms.

4. Cash in clean, counted notes

   Count it before you go. For large amounts, ask by chat how the counter handles cash counting and whether the person on duty can serve you that day.

5. A plan for the receipt

   Keep the paper slip and save the transaction hash once the coins arrive. Both help with tax and disputes.

Pros and cons

Who Moneybees suits, and who should skip it

It suits you if you hold cash and no verified app, if you sell USDT for pesos and prefer notes in hand, if your amount is above what a pawnshop cash-in allows (say ₱100,000 to ₱5 million) or if you want a face and a receipt instead of a chat window. It also suits foreigners passing through Metro Manila, subject to the counter’s ID requirements.

Skip it if you already use GCash, Maya or a bank app, because small buys there are one tap away; see the GCash GCrypto review and Maya crypto review. Skip it if you trade often and care about basis points: an order-book exchange such as PDAX will beat a quoted rate (see the PDAX review). And skip it if you live outside Metro Manila and Davao, since the trip may cost more than the spread. Very large tickets belong on an OTC desk; read our crypto OTC guide.

To see how Moneybees ranks against the rest, start with our list of the best crypto exchanges in the Philippines. Two other smaller licensed apps, DOPAY and TopWallet, have reviews too, though they are wallets rather than cash counters. For cash-out, the selling guide lists the alternatives.

Safety and support

Counters inside malls and pawnshops have guards and cameras, which is a real improvement on meeting a stranger. Our crypto scams guide explains why. Support on the website is chat-based and we found no phone number on the homepage. The BSP list carries contact channels for the company’s head office, which is the place to escalate a complaint. Never send crypto to a Moneybees wallet address given in a chat message, only to the address the counter or the official site gives you at the time of the trade.