Opportunities for Viet Nam’s crypto assets

The issuance of a legal framework for digital assets is not only an urgent management requirement but also opens opportunities for Viet Nam to gradually meet international standards.

Ready with a legal framework for crypto assets

The National Assembly adopted the Law on Digital Technology Industry, which will take effect on January 1, 2026, marking a strategic milestone. This is the first time Viet Nam has a legal framework that specifically regulates areas such as digital platforms, digital data, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital assets. The National Assembly has also passed a resolution on developing a financial centre, allowing the establishment of specialised exchanges, including crypto asset exchanges. The Ministry of Finance is completing the pilot project on the crypto asset market. Accordingly, blockchain technology is considered as the key technology of operation infrastructure and transaction monitoring.

Viet Nam is among the few countries that consider blockchain as digital infrastructure and are taking concrete legal steps for digital assets.

“The issuance of a legal framework for digital assets is not only an urgent management requirement but also opens opportunities for Viet Nam to gradually meet international standards. This will be an important stepping stone for Viet Nam’s financial market to develop in a more transparent and stable way,” emphasised To Tran Hoa, Deputy Head of the Securities Market Development Department under the State Securities Commission.

Sharing perspectives on prospects, Mai Huy Tuan, General Director of SSI Digital, expressed his hope that the combination of sandbox and financial corridors will provide the foundation to ensure that each tested technology has the opportunity to go further, not only in Viet Nam but also in regional and international markets.

According to analytics company Chainalysis, capital inflow from the blockchain market into Viet Nam during 2023–2024 period reached over 105 billion USD, with nearly 1.2 billion USD in profits in 2023. Triple-A’s 2024 report showed that more than 20% of Viet Nam’s population owns digital money. Viet Nam ranks among the top three countries in terms of crypto adoption index, as noted by Chainalysis, with a popular rate three to four times higher than the global average.

Phan Duc Trung, Chairman of 1Matrix Company, believes that piloting a crypto asset exchange will help the state collect tax from a market of about 100 billion USD/year flowing in the digital asset sector in Viet Nam. At the same time, investors will have an additional financial channel to choose, and businesses will have access to a new fundraising channel.

The pilot of crypto asset exchange will help Vietnamese people’s transactions go out of the “grey zone”, expanding development space, and help managing agencies have a basis to control and prevent money laundering.

Criteria for becoming a “crypto asset exchange”

With 24/7 trading, unlimited and borderless transfer via blockchain technology, and strict compliance with international regulations and practices on anti-money laundering, crypto asset exchanges will have different characteristics from securities exchanges.

Currently, around 19 million types of tokens are being traded globally. The selection of tokens to be listed on Viet Nam’s crypto asset exchange will be based on a wide range of criteria.

According to Phan Duc Trung, Viet Nam should initially pilot only about 50–100 tokens, mainly focusing on large-cap tokens such as BTC and ETH.

“We should have regulations for control but also need to create a smooth flow to ensure management while still fostering innovation,” Trung said candidly.

The draft resolution on piloting the issuance and trading of crypto assets, as submitted to the government by the Ministry of Finance, highlights a key requirement: companies operating digital asset exchanges must have a minimum capital scale of 7,000–10,000 billion VND and at least 35% of the capital must be held by at least two organisations of banks, securities companies, fund management firms, insurance companies, or technology enterprises. The remaining 65% must belong to organisations, not individuals.

According to Mr. To Tran Hoa, this proposal has a basis when placing the crypto asset exchange in a role equivalent to a combination of a stock exchange, a depository company and a securities company. Hoa noted that digital asset exchange operating companies are expected to operate in many fields including exchange market opening, payment and asset custody. Digital assets are high-risk assets; as such, enterprises must have enough resources to cover losses and repay investors when volatility happens.

By mid-2025, the crypto asset market was close to 4,000 billion USD. Many countries, such as Singapore, China, and European nations, are piloting national digital currencies. In Japan, the Financial Services Agency is set to approve the issuance of the first stablecoin denominated in Japanese Yen as early as this autumn, aimed at being used for international money transfers and many other applications. Countries are all determined to control new value flows in the digital space. However, no country has a comprehensive law to manage crypto assets.

The government is going to issue a draft on piloting a digital asset exchange, which is expected to create a major boost to Viet Nam’s financial market, helping the country to stand shoulders to shoulders with countries with developed finance and creating breakthroughs for blockchain technology and crypto assets. Viet Nam is proactively stepping into the digital era. This is an effective direction, helping the state to balance between management and creativity.

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