Paymaya vs Coins.ph Crypto Buying Guide and Rate Comparison

Mobile electronic wallets (e-wallets) are vital to Filipinos’s daily transactions because of the pandemic. Filipinos can use these e-wallets from buying products and services online to paying utility bills at the comfort of their own home. Now that PayMaya has added crypto offerings on their app, this could be a game changer for the industry and to the lives of Filipinos. Coins.ph, on the other hand, has offered more cryptocurrencies, especially from blockchain gaming, that could help cater to both traders and gamers.

PayMaya

PayMaya, recently rolled out a new feature on their app that Paymaya users can now trade cryptocurrencies. In relation to what Nick Wilwayco, Head of PR and Communications, revealed to BitPinas in a previous interview, “Customers can already invest in crypto using PayMaya as their e-wallet. PayMaya is helping democratize access to these services, even for those who do not yet have a bank account.”

As of April 19, the available cryptocurrencies are:

• Bitcoin (BTC) 
• Polygon (MATIC) 
• Ethereum (ETH) 
• Polkadot (DOT) 
• Cardano (ADA) 
• Chainlink (LINK) 
• Solana (SOL) 
• Uniswap (UNI) 
• Quant (QNT), and 
• Tether (USDT) 

With an amount as little as ₱1, a PayMaya user can trade with these cryptocurrencies. Wilwayco expressed with enthusiasm, “We’re very excited about this as you can probably imagine. We’re happy to share with you that PayMaya has made a big stride in going beyond payments with the availability of the Crypto feature in our app. This will enable Filipinos to easily buy and earn popular digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum for as low as ₱1”.

This can give more Filipinos opportunities to learn about cryptocurrencies because of their in-app tutorial on what cryptocurrencies are, which focus on demonstrating how users can utilize the app to trade crypto with their Peso. Crypto-related news can also be found in the app to keep users updated on the latest crypto stories.

PayMaya provides more than 35 million Filipinos with access to financial services through its consumer platforms. Customers can conveniently pay, add money, cash out, or remit through its over 250,000 digital touchpoints nationwide. Its Smart Padala by PayMaya network of over 39,000 partner agent touchpoints nationwide serves as last-mile digital financial hubs in communities, providing the unbanked and underserved with access to digital services.
For more BitPinas articles about PayMaya, you may read up on our articles on them!

Coins.ph

On the other hand, Coins.ph, and their new CEO, Wei Zhou, wanted Coins to be the “Crypto Company of the Philippines“. “Every country has a crypto champion, such as Coinbase in the US (or) WazirX in India. I want Coins.ph to be the crypto company when the world talks about the Philippines”.

As of April 19, the cryptocurrencies it caters include BTC, ETH, LINK, UNI, MATIC, USDT, Axie Infinity Shard (AXS), Smooth Love Potion (SLP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), USD Coin (USDC), Kyber Network Crystal (KNC), Maker (MKR), AAVE and The Sandbox (SAND).

Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.

Coins.ph is regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and is the first ever blockchain-based company in Asia to hold both Virtual Currency and Electronic Money Issuer licenses from a central bank.

For more of the exclusive interview with Zhou and about Coins.ph, you may watch our interview with them.

Coins.ph vs PayMaya Comparison of Rates

With the recent upgrades and news from both popular e-wallets, below is a sample comparison of their rates if a user converts ₱500.00 to BTC and the same amount back to Philippine Peso. Rate comparison was done on April 19, 2022. 

Of course, with cryptocurrency’s market volatility, a difference in the rates can be noticed. Both transactions were made within a six minute time frame to be as accurate as possible. The data shows that Coins.ph has a lower rate for both Buying and Selling BTC which leads to lesser loss in amount when converting back the initial amount traded. In actual trading, PayMaya may reduce the amount of Peso entered by the user by ₱0.01 (example, ₱500.00 becomes ₱499.99 at the next screen).

Advantages of Using PayMaya

PayMaya as a mobile e-wallet is convenient for users. The users can transact seamlessly within the app and they offer various services to help in paying utility bills, government obligations and fees, topping-up mobile numbers from different mobile networks, and purchasing products and services online. 

For people who want to learn more about cryptocurrency, it also offers a beginner’s guide to orient users about the cryptocurrencies and how to use the app for trading them. As mentioned above, PayMaya even features news about cryptocurrency as well.

Advantage of using Coins.ph

With Coins.ph, users can trade from one currency to another without converting it to Peso. This can easily diversify the user’s portfolio and have more opportunities to gain profit as they hold multiple cryptocurrencies within the app. You can also move in and out your crypto, unlike PayMaya. The cryptocurrencies that Coins.ph have are also inclined to blockchain games like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and from Gala Games, which is an advantage for gamers to  out or convert to Peso. These cryptocurrencies can be sent to them to their crypto wallets; in Axie Infinity, for example, users can channel it through the Ronin network. 

Users can also use Coins.ph to pay bills, shop in Shopee, and top up their phones. With addition to these features, the user can receive remittances locally and abroad. For gamers, they can get game credits for their mobile and desktop games.

Aside from the app, Coins.ph offers Coins.ph Pro for experienced crypto traders to use charts as guide and has higher limits compared with what the app provides.

Conclusion

Both mobile apps are useful to both crypto enthusiasts and ordinary Filipinos. Both can be used for convenience in paying bills, purchasing products and services online and even sending money to loved ones and friends. It really boils down to the user’s preference on what features stand out for them and which feature they normally use it for. 

PayMaya can be more on transacting in real life while Coins.ph can be both for traders and gamers, alike. However, both mobile applications do not provide private keys, which means users have a pseudo ownership of their cryptocurrencies, unlike Metamask, a crypto wallet. 

This article is published on BitPinas: Paymaya vs Coins.ph Crypto Buying Guide and Rate Comparison

Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.