Vietnam has opened a five-year crypto exchange licensing pilot in an effort to develop a domestic crypto exchange industry.
Techcombank and its securities arm, Techcom Securities (TCBS), are the first to submit an application. Both meet the minimum charter capital requirement of 10 trillion dong (approx. $400 million) and are primarily backed by institutional shareholders.
There are also roughly eight other Vietnamese securities firms and banks that have expressed interest in submitting an application.
But the government only plans to license a small initial group of five crypto platforms.
On January 26, Vietnamese lawmaker Hai Nam Nguyen stressed the importance of properly assessing and calibrating risk to match Vietnam’s domestic realities.
“The volatility of digital and crypto assets can be even greater than that of traditional securities markets…. Our priority is innovation with risk control, investor protection, and system safety.”
Once Vietnam’s first licensed crypto exchange starts operating, crypto traders will have six months to link their wallets with government-approved platforms or face criminal penalties.
A market without a rulebook
Before the launch of the pilot on January 20, there were no crypto exchanges licensed in Vietnam and no legal channels to apply for one.
This led to residents opening an estimated 20 million wallets with offshore crypto exchanges such as Binance, Bybit and OKX, as well as peer-to-peer (P2P) channels like Remitano.
“Unregulated crypto flows moving offshore could make it harder for Vietnam to track capital and may eventually pressure the local currency,” said Huy Pham, Associate Professor in Finance at RMIT University, Vietnam.
Crypto faces the tax net
Crypto trading has flourished in the absence of a formal legal framework. It is widely used for remittances, salary payments and online trading, averaging about $600 million in daily transactions.
“Crypto traders have avoided taxes for a long time, and when companies pay salaries in crypto, employees often don’t pay tax because there’s no clear regulation,” said Pham.
The government now wants to rein in the outflow of untaxed crypto held on foreign exchanges.
Vietnam’s Digital Technology Industry Law came into effect on January 1, 2026, providing a foundation for tax authorities to develop management and oversight policies for digital assets.
Startups are not welcome
The crypto pilot program was designed to attract the country’s largest financial institutions. It has set a high bar for entry, with some of the world’s steepest minimum capital and shareholder requirements.
HCMC Blockchain Association General Secretary Tran Xuan Tien said the requirements act as a “filter” in selecting financial institutions with a genuine capacity and in turn, creating a robust environment for foreign investors.
Proving technical muscle
Crypto exchange license applicants must also demonstrate specialized expertise and robust cybersecurity systems.
Huy Pham said technological capacity is the last thing he is worried about as Vietnam embarks on growing its domestic crypto industry.
“The technological know-how is already here in Vietnam,” he said.”We have companies that could help with tracking crypto flows and detecting suspicious transactions.”
Vietnam is home to a hive of blockchain developers such as Verichains, Kyber Network, Sky Mavis, U2U Network and ONUS. The government is also working to attract foreign fintech companies.
In June 2025, Vietnam designated digital assets alongside AI and semiconductors as core drivers of its future economy under the Digital Technology Industry Law. The new law uses tax breaks, land incentives and state-backed R&D support to lower the cost of setting up a blockchain business.
Crypto is too popular to ignore
Vietnam is already one of Asia’s largest crypto markets. Chainalysis estimated more than $230 billion in crypto transactions between July 2024 and June 2025, placing Vietnam third worldwide, behind India and South Korea.
The integration of crypto trading is set to bring a $200 billion boost to the local economy. While Pham debates that estimate, even a lower figure of $50 billion would still deliver substantial economic growth.
A capital market experiment
“At the beginning, we’re going to see two separate markets to reduce the risk for the Vietnamese,” Huy Pham said, adding that tokenized products carry “very high” risks and are not yet available to Vietnamese residents.
“When the digital literacy of the Vietnamese improves these products could be offered domestically,” Pham said. “They want to test out those products first on a foreign investor base because they don’t want the Vietnamese to get scammed.”
However, limiting exchanges to domestic users could create liquidity constraints, similar to the so-called kimchi premium seen in South Korea.
“If liquidity isn’t high, it’s hard for an exchange to make money,” Pham said. “Spot trading alone generates thin margins and exchanges would need to scale to be profitable. ”
He believes allowing futures products would make exchanges much more commercially sustainable.
