A public investor alert warning has been issued by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to caution Filipinos against investing in dYdX and six other cryptocurrency trading platforms. The alert states that these platforms are not permitted to solicit investments in the nation and have not been registered.
The SEC included dYdX, Aevo, gTrade, Pacifica, Orderly, Deriv, and Ostium in a Facebook post on Tuesday. The SEC said that the platforms seem to be offering investments to the public in return for claimed profits, returns, or interest, according to its findings.
Firms providing crypto-related services in the Philippines are required to obtain licenses and meet capital and operational requirements under the crypto-asset service provider (CASP) framework. The regulator stated that none of the listed entities are registered with the Commission or hold the necessary authorization under this framework.
Promoting any of the listed platforms in the Philippines might lead to criminal punishment under the Securities Regulation Code, according to the SEC’s warning. Violators face possible fines of up to 5 million Philippine pesos (about $89,000) or jail terms of up to 21 years, or both, as outlined in Sections 28 and 73 of the legislation.
Stringent Crackdown
In recent years, authorities in the Philippines have alternated between issuing warnings and imposing access limits, a trend that this advice exemplifies. The Philippines’ government began its assault on unregistered CASPs on December 24, 2025, by blocking Coinbase and Gemini.
The most recent warning comes as authorities in the Philippines are cracking down harder on cryptocurrency exchanges that don’t have the proper license to operate in the country.
Officials took action in 2024 to cut off access to Binance after the expiration of a compliance deadline. They also ordered app stores to delete the Binance app from customers’ devices in the nation.
Since then, more prominent platforms have been subject to the crackdown. Alerting Filipino investors to hazards, the SEC published an advisory in August 2025 identifying 10 exchanges, including OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, and Kraken, for providing crypto services without registration.
