Vietnam is moving deeper into regulated crypto markets as senior securities officials frame digital assets and tokenized real-world assets as a growing pillar of the country’s digital economy.
State Securities Commission Vice Chairman Bùi Hoàng Hải said Vietnam is entering a critical phase in building a legal framework for digital finance and pilot crypto-asset trading platforms under Government Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP. The comments came at a Hanoi conference focused on crypto assets and the future of digital financial markets, with participation from securities regulators, the State Bank of Vietnam, the Ministry of Public Security, banks, securities firms and blockchain industry groups.
The shift turns Vietnam’s crypto story from informal retail demand into a formal market-structure question. The country has long ranked among the world’s most active crypto markets, but users have largely depended on offshore exchanges, peer-to-peer routes and unregulated access points. Vietnam’s earlier push to move trading toward licensed local crypto exchanges now sits at the center of that transition.
Pilot Market Moves From Policy To Design
Vietnam’s five-year crypto asset pilot began under Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP, which took effect on September 9, 2025. The framework covers crypto-asset issuance, trading markets, crypto-asset services and state oversight.
The pilot is tightly controlled. Crypto-asset trading, issuance and settlement must be conducted in Vietnamese đồng. Only Ministry of Finance-licensed service providers can operate trading markets, custody, proprietary trading or issuance platforms. The framework also requires compliance with anti-money laundering, cybersecurity, data protection and counter-terrorism financing rules.
Draft regulatory orientations discussed at the conference show how the market could work in practice. Investors may still hold assets in personal wallets after licensed virtual asset service providers begin operating, but trading activity would eventually move through licensed domestic platforms. Foreign investors would be allowed to open accounts, while domestic participation would initially focus on people who already hold crypto assets. Officials also said trading would be denominated in VND, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins such as USDT and USDC.
Adoption Data Gives Regulators A Larger Target
Vietnam’s regulatory push is backed by unusually high market activity. Chris Chiew, senior advisor at CAEX, said Vietnam ranks seventh globally in crypto-asset users and fifth in transaction growth. He pointed to a young, technology-focused population and a fast-growing digital economy as reasons the country could become a larger digital-asset hub.
Government data has already placed Vietnam among the world’s most dynamic crypto markets. The country had around 17 million crypto holders, with the figure reaching 21 million at some points. Chainalysis data cited by the government estimated $220 billion to $230 billion in crypto transactions involving Vietnamese users from July 2024 to June 2025, or more than $600 million per day.
That scale explains why regulators are moving toward licensed infrastructure. High adoption without domestic oversight can push fees, data, trading flows and risk offshore. A local pilot market gives Vietnam a path to retain more activity inside regulated channels while building investor protection, tax reporting, cybersecurity controls and anti-money laundering supervision.
Tokenization Becomes The Bigger Policy Bet
The conference also pushed crypto beyond exchange trading. Tokenized real-world assets are becoming a major part of Vietnam’s digital-finance pitch, especially for real estate, gold, infrastructure, data centers, energy projects, commodities and port systems.
Chiew argued that tokenization could expand access to large-value assets by dividing ownership into smaller digital units. That matters in a market where many individual investors cannot easily access private assets and where hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses still face capital constraints.
The opportunity is large, but the risks are just as clear. Tokenized assets need enforceable ownership rights, clean custody, reliable valuation, investor disclosure, asset segregation and clear redemption rules. Without those safeguards, tokenization can turn illiquid real-world assets into speculative digital claims with weak protection.
Vietnam’s crypto pilot now gives regulators a controlled test of that balance. The country has the user base, transaction volume and digital-economy momentum to become one of Asia’s most important regulated crypto markets. The next phase will depend on licensing, exchange readiness, custody standards, VND settlement rails and whether investor protection can keep pace with one of the world’s most active crypto user bases.
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