PDAX review: the local exchange for order books and large trades

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

PDAX review, short version: the Philippine Digital Asset Exchange is a Bangko Sentral licensed exchange that gives you an order book, 73 coins and a Prime OTC desk for large trades. Its cash-out fees are low (₱10 to ₱15), but cashing in by GCash costs about 2.9%. We score it 8.6/10.

PDAX is the answer to a specific question: “I want a proper local exchange, not a button inside a wallet.” If you only want ₱500 of Bitcoin in five minutes, a wallet feature is simpler. If you plan to trade regularly, move larger sums or want a desk to quote a big ticket, PDAX earns a closer look. This review is based on PDAX’s published fee page and help centre as of 28 September 2026; we did not run test trades, so where a number is not published we say so.

Our verdict in one paragraph

PDAX scores 8.6 out of 10 in our ranking, which places it second in our ranking, behind only the global option CEX.IO and ahead of the wallet-based options; see how we rate exchanges for the weights. It wins on licence (full BSP VASP status in its own name), on peso rails (InstaPay, PESONet, e-wallets and bank transfer) and on depth (73 coins plus an OTC route). It loses points on cost transparency, because the trading fee is not on the official fee page, and on user experience, since its iOS rating of 3.67 is well below the 4.6 to 4.7 that Maya and other local apps hold. It is a tool for people who will trade more than once, not a one-tap novelty.

Is PDAX legit? Licence and regulation

Yes, in the sense that matters for Filipinos. Philippine Digital Asset Exchange appears on the BSP list of licensed virtual asset service providers (as of 15 July 2026) as a non-bank VASP, with its registered office on the 31st floor of Robinsons Cyberscape Gamma, Topaz and Ruby Roads, Ortigas, Pasig City. That puts it among only nine active licence holders, in a market where the BSP has extended its freeze on new VASP licences indefinitely. Our explainer on crypto regulations in the Philippines covers what the freeze means, and our list of licensed crypto exchanges shows the other eight.

Two cautions. First, some secondary sites call PDAX “SEC-registered”; we found no official SEC list confirming that for any exchange, so we do not repeat the claim. Second, a licence is about conduct: customer identification, anti-money-laundering controls and a regulator you can complain to. It says nothing about whether Bitcoin will be worth more next month.

PDAX also runs the crypto engine behind GCash’s GCrypto. GCash is not on the BSP list, so PDAX is the licensed party there. Our GCash GCrypto review looks at that side. If you sign up for PDAX directly, you are dealing with the licence holder, not a partner.

PDAX fees: what it costs to get in, trade and get out

PDAX’s fee page lists cash-in and cash-out charges clearly, which is more than several wallet rivals do. It does not list a trading fee, and it carries no last-updated date, so treat everything below as a snapshot from 28 September 2026.

The lesson is to fund from a bank account, not an e-wallet. Put ₱100,000 in through GCash and about ₱2,900 disappears before you buy anything; through GrabPay it is about ₱1,700; through Maya about ₱3,015. Through online bank transfer it is free. The exit is cheap: cashing out ₱50,000 by InstaPay costs ₱15, or 0.03%. The BSP’s own summary of transfer fees (as of 31 August 2026) shows the same ₱10 PESONet and ₱15 InstaPay figures for PDAX, which is a useful independent check.

For select premium clients PDAX also lists RTGS at ₱100, SWIFT at US$25 and PDDTS at US$8. Those matter only if you move very large sums.

The trading fee we could not verify

Third-party reviews put PDAX’s order-book trading fee at 0.40% for makers and 0.50% for takers. We could not find these numbers on an official PDAX page, and the official fee page does not state a trading fee at all. If they are right, a ₱100,000 taker order costs about ₱500, well above the 0.10% and 0.15% that Coins.ph publishes for its Spot screen. Check the quote on the order screen before you trade and keep a screenshot. Our crypto fees and spreads guide shows how to compare cost per trade across platforms.

Crypto withdrawals also carry a fee. PDAX says it is “not fixed” and follows real-time market conditions, depending on the asset, the blockchain network and current gas fees.

Tiers and limits

PDAX uses four account tiers. The support article on crypto withdrawal limits gives the daily ceilings, and the limits reset every day at 00:00 Philippine time.

• Basic: ₱0. You cannot withdraw crypto at all until you verify.
• Verified: ₱1 million a day.
• Premium: ₱4 million a day.
• Prime: no explicit limit.

PDAX notes that the peso value of a withdrawal moves with market prices, so remaining limit can shift during the day. Most withdrawals process within minutes, though some take 30 to 60 minutes for security checks. For pesos, the fee page lists a ₱50,000 maximum on InstaPay, so a ₱300,000 cash-out either goes by PESONet (1 to 3 banking days) or is split. Deposit limits per tier were not on the pages we read.

Compared with the wallets: GCrypto caps a Fully Verified user at ₱100,000 a month of withdrawals back to GCash, so a Verified PDAX account is a very different tool if you move real money.

Coins and other products

PDAX’s help centre says users of the web exchange and mobile app had access to 73 cryptocurrencies as of November 2025 (page last modified 10 November 2025). That is more than GCrypto (about 45 assets) or Maya (about 33 tokens) but fewer than the roughly 150 tokens Coins.ph lists, and a small fraction of what a global exchange offers. We have not re-counted since; open the market list in the app for today’s figure.

The fee page also references tokenised government bonds, PDAX Gold and PDAX Remit. Bonds carry their own fees (0.50% total on primary T-bills, none on primary RTBs, 0.75% on secondary RTBs), which we mention only because they show PDAX is broader than a coin shop. We have not tested those products. If you are after stablecoin flows, our guide to buying USDT in the Philippines explains how PDAX fits into an OFW-style route.

PDAX Prime and the OTC desk

The reason many serious traders look at PDAX is PDAX Prime. It gives a dedicated relationship manager, a personalised group chat for support, “no explicit transaction limits” and access to a Prime over-the-counter desk where a large trade is executed on a single quote instead of eating through the order book.

The desk’s own Treasury OTC features page is where the numbers live. The minimum ticket is ₱1,000,000 (or the equivalent in assets or fiat) for standard assets and ₱250,000 for OTC-only assets. Settlement is within one banking day (T+1) for trades between 9 AM and 4 PM Philippine time and within two banking days (T+2) between 4 PM and 9 PM. A quote stays valid for one minute, and once you accept and PDAX confirms, the trade is binding. Access is limited to selected Prime account holders; general enquiries go to prime@pdax.ph and confirmations to trade@pdax.ph.

If you regularly move ₱1 million or more, that structure is worth having: one price, no slippage from a thin book, a named person to call. If you do not, Prime is irrelevant. For how the other desks compare, read our page on crypto OTC desks in the Philippines. PDAX’s office is in Ortigas, so buying crypto in Pasig and nearby Metro Manila cities is as simple as opening the app; there is no walk-in counter that we could confirm.

App, security and support

On the iOS App Store in the Philippines, PDAX rated 3.67 from about 1,000 ratings when we checked on 28 September 2026. That sample is small and the score is mixed; by comparison Maya sits at 4.62 and Coins.ph at 4.72 on much larger bases. We would not lean too heavily on a star rating, but it fits what we see elsewhere: PDAX is built for capability, and beginners may find the screens busier than a wallet.

On security, we can only report what is published. Withdrawals of crypto need a verified account, limits are tiered, and larger withdrawals can be held for extra checks. We found no official statement on how customer assets are segregated, so we do not claim any. The 7-Eleven and CLiQQ cash-in channel was listed as unavailable in a support snippet we found, so do not plan around it. The last user figure we found is 800,000 users at the end of 2022 from a press report, which is dated, so we do not use it as proof of scale.

Pros and cons

Who PDAX suits, and who should look elsewhere

PDAX suits people who trade or convert more than a few times, who fund from a bank account and who care about a licensed local counterparty. Freelancers converting USDT into pesos, small businesses moving treasury funds and long-term holders adding in tranches all fit. Anyone likely to cross ₱1 million in one ticket should ask about Prime.

It suits you less if you want the shortest path from a GCash balance to a small crypto position, if you dislike reading fee tables or if you need a walk-in cash counter. For those cases, look at the wallets. Our GCash GCrypto review weighs convenience against an undisclosed spread, and our Maya crypto review covers the ₱1 minimum. For cash-based routes, see buying crypto with cash and selling crypto for cash.

If you want to pay with a Visa or Mastercard, or need a coin PDAX does not list, a global platform such as CEX.IO is an option. It is registered with FinCEN in the US and the Bank of Spain and has operated since 2013, but it is not BSP-licensed and has no peso, GCash or InstaPay rails; our CEX.IO review spells that out.

How PDAX compares

Our ranking of the best crypto exchanges in the Philippines puts PDAX at 8.6, ahead of GCrypto (8.4) and Maya (8.1) and behind CEX.IO (8.9), which is not BSP-licensed and has no peso rails. The gap to the wallets is mostly depth and limits; what holds PDAX back from the top is cost clarity and app polish. It is a good second account for anyone who already uses a wallet: keep GCash for spending, add PDAX when the amounts grow.