Vietnam’s crypto pilot targets $200 billion market from overseas wallets
The post Vietnam’s crypto pilot targets $200 billion market from overseas wallets appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
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…
Filed under: News - @ January 27, 2026 11:28 am