A Simple Guide to Using GCrypto

This post is to teach you how to buy and sell crypto assets using GCrypto in GCash.

Disclaimer: This post aims to educate, and not to give financial advice. Investments have different risks and it is up to the investor to do due diligence to make their own decisions regarding his money.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I’ve talked about cryptocurrencies before. And I’ve always argued that cryptocurrencies have a place in one’s own portfolio. Even if you have a few tokens, and even if we tend to forget we have them, as long as the coin/token has utility it has the potential to become valuable in the future.

I’m not talking about the tokens that rely on hype to shoot their valuation up to the moon. I mean we should buy coins or tokens that have stood the test of time and have a valid use case to prop up their price.

With the boom of decentralized finance last year, it seems that there are ways to invest your assets into different investment smart contracts, and with higher yields than your normal digital bank rates.

Unfortunately, this “crypto winter” seems to be specifically long and arduous lately, ever since the crash of the LUNA token and the FTX Exchange, and now Binance has issues in the US regarding BUSD being classified as a security. Now it is best to keep on peso cost averaging with select coins or tokens we are sure will be used even during this winter season.

What is GCrypto?

GCrypto is a cryptocurrency trading product built into GCash. It allows you to buy and sell supported coins/tokens and build up your portfolio from within GCash itself.

Despite the current bearish environment, GCash has not let out one bit and has decided to work with PDAX to push for this GCrypto product. I had written a post before about how to buy and sell coins in PDAX and now since they’ve partnered directly, it makes onboarding users and handling transactions easier.

My recommendation on using GCrypto is you can use this to buy and sell crypto assets, but you should have your own separate crypto wallet. Centralized exchange wallets like PDAX do not have your ownership. If something goes wrong with the exchange, there is no recovery of your assets.

What are the requirements for opening a GCrypto account?

You need to be at least 18 years of age, have fully verified with GCash, and have an active email account.

How to create a GCrypto account?

Currently, GCrypto isn’t released in full to the public, but there are some users who are allowed to open accounts in phases. Once it is available you will be able to proceed with account opening.

Registering in GCrypto

From the main GCash page, click on View All. Then scroll down to the Enjoy section and select GCrypto.
On the opt-in page, click on Agree. Once you’re eligible to open a GCrypto account, you will be able to click on “Get Started”.
The registration page is short as you only need to input some details and investment experience.
The last page is the Terms and Conditions page which you need to agree with to proceed.
Once done, you will be able to see the GCrypto main page.

How do I top-up or withdraw my GCrypto wallet?

GCrypto works as an exchange, so you first need to top-up funds to be able to buy your crypto assets. Unlike GStocks and GFunds though, you can top-up and withdraw your funds immediately.

Topping up your GCrypto Wallet

From the GCrypto main page, click on “Top-Up Your Trading Wallet”.
On the top-up page, enter your amount and click continue. This will lead you to the payment page where you need to confirm.
Once confirmed, your trading wallet will be officially topped up.

Withdrawing from your GCrypto Wallet

From the GCrypto main page, click on Withdraw.
On the Withdraw page, enter the amount to be withdrawn and click Continue.
You will be receiving an OTP in your email. Enter the 6-digit number and click on Submit Code.
Once a withdrawal is successful, you will be seeing a success page.

Wallet and Transaction Limits

This also covers most of the limits of all cash-in channels, including over-the-counter, machine, online, Paypal, Payoneer, and remittances.

Additionally, the outgoing limit also applies to financial services like GInvest and GInsure, as you are putting money into investments and/or insurance.

Detail	Basic	Fully Verified	Fully Verified with Linked Accounts	Fully Verified Minor (GCash Jr)	Platinum ( enrolled in a Globe Platinum Plan)
Wallet Size	Php 50,000	Php 100,000	Php 500,000	Php 50,000	Php 1,000,000
Daily Incoming Limit	Php 10,000	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Monthly Incoming Limit	Php 50,000	Php 100,000	Php 500,000	Php 10,000	Php 1,000,000
Daily Outgoing Limit	N/A	Php 100,000	Php 100,000	Php 10,000	Php 500,000
Monthly Outgoing Limit	Php 10,000	N/A	N/A	Php 10,000	Php 1,000,000
Yearly Outgoing Limit	N/A	N/A	N/A	Php 100,000	N/A

The linked accounts here pertain to BPI, UnionBank, and Payoneer accounts, with GSave and GInvest placements.

If you encounter GCash limit exceeded errors, you will need to wait for next month for your limits to reset.

How do I buy or sell crypto assets in GCrypto?

In GCrypto, each crypto asset also has its own wallet. After topping up, you can now easily buy or sell supported cryptocurrencies within GCrypto as you have a crypto wallet for each asset.

GCrypto/PDAX supported crypto assets

To explain in a nutshell, the difference between “coin” and “token” is that coins are the main units of information in a blockchain. Any transaction or information is tracked by coins. Tokens, on the other hand, are real-world applications that are used on top of a blockchain, and they are supported by the coins in that chain.

Tokens are created so that projects don’t need to build a new blockchain from scratch to keep track of transactions and information. They can just ride on existing blockchains.

In the table below, if the crypto asset has the same name as the blockchain, it is a coin of that blockchain. Otherwise, it’s a token.

Crypto Asset	Blockchain	Description
Ethereum (ETH)	Ethereum	The pioneer for computing blockchains and it is the most used one; a lot of tokens ride on top of this
Bitcoin (BTC)	Bitcoin	The pioneer for all crypto assets; its coin is used mainly as a currency and is the most well-known and mainstream asset
Solana (SOL)	Solana	A blockchain alternative to Ethereum and is known for very high speed transactions
Avalanche (AVAX)	Avalanche	A blockchain alternative to Ethereum and known for speed and security
USD Coin (USDC)	Ethereum	A USD stablecoin token in Ethereum, meaning its value is pegged to the US Dollar
Tether (USDT)	Ethereum	Another well-known USD stablecoin token in Ethereum
Binance Coin (BNB)	BNB	A coin that is tied with Binance, the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange; known for its speed and enables Binance users to utilize their platform in many inventive ways
Cardano (ADA)	Cardano	A blockchain alternative to Ethereum and seeks to improve on Ethereum’s issues
Polkadot (DOT)	Polkadot	A blockchain alternative that uses mini-blockchains to facilitate scaling
Litecoin (LTC)	Litecoin	An original fork (“copy that diverged from”) to Bitcoin, and is the silver to Bitcoin’s gold; generally cheaper and faster than Bitcoin
Uniswap (UNI)	Ethereum	A decentralized finance (de-fi) platform mainly used as a decentralized exchange; you can “swap” tokens with other tokens in the ETH blockchain
Polygon (MATIC)	Ethereum	This project aims to interconnect different blockchains within the ETH ecosystem; basically having other chains with their own governance and functions
Chainlink (LINK)	Ethereum	Implements oracles, or systems that track data outside of the blockchain; examples are financial data, sports data, etc
Stellar (XLM)	Stellar	A blockchain that is known for very, very low fees and is good for micropayments
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)	Bitcoin Cash	A fork of Bitcoin itself when there was a disagreement to handle how transactions were validated; still works mostly similar to Bitcoin but is not as popular
Axie Infinity (AXS)	Ronin	The Ronin sidechain is a blockchain built on top of ETH to easily support the Axie Infinity game
AAVE	Ethereum	This is a de-fi platform or lending and borrowing assets in the ETH platform
The Graph (GRT)	Ethereum	Allows to get data across all projects inside the ETH ecosystem; makes searching data easier as different projects are usually silos in themselves
Basic Attention Token (BAT)	Ethereum	Aims to democratize attention sharing; main objective is to distribute advertising money efficiently across readers and publishers
Enjin (ENJ)	Ethereum	Makes management of virtual goods easier; known for making non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and game-related goods and collectibles
Sushiswap (SUSHI)	Ethereum	Another popular de-fi decentralized exchange; a fork of Uniswap and has different features from its parent
Smooth Love Potion (SLP)	Ronin	The in-game currency of the Axie Infinity game; allows you to breed Axies which is a core part of the game itself

Here is the list of crypto assets in GCrypto

Buying a crypto asset in GCrypto

From the GCrypto main page, look for the asset you plan to buy and click on it.
From the asset page, click on Buy at the bottom. You will be taken to the Buy page.
On the Buy page, input either the peso amount or the AVAX amount you are planning to buy. Click on Get Quote bottom to get the quoted price. Take note that this price is held for 10 seconds only. If you take too long, you will need to get another quote. Click on the Buy button.
You will see that your Buy Order is successful. When you go back to the GCrypto main page your assets will update.

Selling a crypto asset in GCrypto

From the GCrypto main page, look for the asset you plan to sell and click on it.
From the asset page, click on Sell at the bottom. You will be taken to the Sell page.
On the Sell page, input either the peso amount or the AVAX amount you are planning to sell. Click on Get Quote bottom to get the quoted price. Take note that this price is held for 10 seconds only. If you take too long, you will need to get another quote. Click on the Sell button.
You will see that your Sell Order is successful. When you go back to the GCrypto main page your assets will update.

How do I send or receive crypto assets in GCrypto?

In GCrypto, as each crypto asset also has its own wallet, you can also send and receive assets in their designated wallets.

Take note that sending and receiving crypto assets has its own risks:

You need to get the address right, as there’s no way to get it back.
You also need to make sure you’re using the proper blockchain to send or receive assets.
You should take into account the transaction fees as they can eat into your asset value. Ethereum is notorious for having high transaction fees.
Lastly, transaction time differs greatly between blockchains. One of the slowest blockchains currently is Bitcoin as a transaction can reach 1-1.5 hrs to validate.

Sending crypto assets to another wallet from GCrypto

Go to the crypto asset page from within GCrypto. Click on the Send button.
On the next page, input the amount of crypto asset you are planning to send. It has a corresponding PHP Value below the field.
Enter the address of the recipient, better use the scanner to scan the QR code of the address to minimize mistakes.
Tick on the disclaimer and click Send. On the next page, review the data and confirm.
As the last step, you will need to doubly confirm by inputting the OTP from your email address. Once done, the sending should succeed.

Receiving crypto assets in GCrypto

Receiving is easier as you only need the QR code or the address to receive assets. Take note that the sending leg of the transaction needs more effort and care. Once the transfer is done, you can wait for the assets to arrive in your specific crypto asset wallet.

How can I check my Transaction History in GCrypto?

You can check all your transactions, even send and receive ones in the Transaction History. It’s at the bottom part of the GCrypto main page.

Summary

I talked about the different features of GCrypto and how you can top-up and withdraw from your wallet, as well as buy, sell, send, and receive crypto assets from their respective wallets.