Hanoi, March 17, 2026. A race is underway in Vietnam as banks, securities firms, and conglomerates compete for one of only five crypto exchange licences the government will issue under a tightly controlled pilot program. The stakes are high: once the first licence is granted, Vietnamese retail investors trading on foreign platforms like Binance, OKX, or Bybit will have six months before that activity becomes illegal.

The licensing framework rests on Vietnam's Law on the Digital Technology Industry, passed on June 14, 2025 and effective from January 1, 2026. The law is the first in Vietnam's history to formally recognize digital assets as property, distinct from legal tender or securities, and provides the statutory foundation for the regulatory changes described below.

The licensing window opened on January 20, 2026, under the Ministry of Finance. No exchange has yet received formal approval. Around ten institutions have signaled readiness to apply, but the field will be narrowed to five over the five-year pilot period. The program was established by Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP on September 9, 2025 and sits under the joint oversight of the Ministry of Finance, the State Securities Commission, and the State Bank of Vietnam.

A $400 Million Entry Fee

The capital requirement alone filters most candidates out. Applicants must hold a minimum paid-up charter capital of VND 10 trillion, equivalent to roughly $378 to $400 million, making it one of the steepest market-entry thresholds for a crypto exchange anywhere in Asia.

Domestic institutional shareholders must control at least 65% of equity, and foreign ownership is capped at 49%. All transactions on licensed platforms must be settled in Vietnamese dong, ruling out direct foreign-currency trading. The law also bars fiat-backed stablecoins and securities-backed digital assets from licensed platforms, a restriction with significant implications for DeFi and cross-border activity.

Tran Xuan Tien, General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Blockchain Association, described the capital floor as a filter designed to select only capable financial institutions.

Nguyen The Minh of Yuanta Securities Vietnam was more expansive in his assessment, saying 2026 represents an important turning point and predicting that scams related to digital assets will certainly decrease sharply under the new framework.

Who Is in the Race

Several prominent Vietnamese institutions have moved quickly. Vietnam Military Bank, known as MB Bank, announced a technology partnership with South Korea's Dunamu, the company behind the Upbit exchange, at the Vietnam-Korea Business Forum in Seoul in August 2025. The arrangement gives MB Bank access to exchange infrastructure, technology transfer, and compliance expertise while keeping majority control domestic.

Sun Group established Vietnam Digital Asset JSC on January 21, 2026 with a 64% controlling stake, starting with charter capital of VND 1 trillion as it builds toward the full threshold.

VPBank has confirmed its application. Affiliates of Techcombank and LPBank are preparing submissions. VIX Securities created a dedicated subsidiary, VIX Crypto Asset Exchange JSC (VIXEX), after expanding its initial investment from VND 150 billion to VND 1 trillion, still well short of the VND 10 trillion threshold.

SSI Securities, through its digital arm founded in 2022, is also among the applicants.

The review process is layered: an initial 20-working-day assessment, followed by a 12-month window for supplemental documentation, and a final 30-day appraisal before any licence is issued.

What This Means for Vietnam's 21 Million Crypto Users

Vietnam is not a minor crypto market. According to data from Tiger Research and Chainalysis, roughly 21.2 million Vietnamese adults have owned or used cryptocurrency, with roughly 70% of those users falling between the ages of 18 and 34.

On-chain transaction volumes exceeded $100 billion annually, and the broader on-chain value of assets held in the market was measured at $220 billion in the most recent Chainalysis assessment.

Vietnam ranks fifth globally on the Chainalysis Crypto Adoption Index and third in the Asia-Pacific region by volume, behind India and Pakistan. The market grew 55% year-over-year in the 12 months to June 2025.

The Ministry of Finance has also proposed a 0.1% personal income tax on every digital asset transfer, applied on gross transaction value regardless of whether the trade was profitable. The proposed effective date is July 1, 2026. The Vietnamese Blockchain Association estimates this levy could generate more than $800 million in annual state revenue.

The overseas trading ban, once triggered, will pressure millions of users currently active on global platforms to migrate to domestic alternatives that are not yet operational.

High-frequency traders and yield farmers will feel the gross-value tax most acutely.

A Broader Regional Pattern

Vietnam's approach fits a wider trend across Southeast Asia. Indonesia transferred crypto oversight to OJK, its financial services regulator, in 2025 and structured its tax code to favor domestic platforms over foreign ones, applying a rate of 0.21% on domestic exchanges compared with 1% on overseas platforms.

Thailand launched an 18-month crypto-to-baht tourist pilot in August 2025 and applies a 15% capital gains tax on trading profits.

The Philippines remains heavily crypto-active, supported by approximately $36 billion in annual remittance flows, but continues to grapple with fraud enforcement.

Vietnam's model concentrates market access in a small number of state-adjacent institutions, a structure that differs sharply from the more open licensing approaches used in Singapore (MAS), the UAE (VARA), and Hong Kong (SFC). The model bears closer comparison to China's approach before 2021, when Beijing maintained a tightly controlled domestic framework before moving to an outright ban.

Tran Quy of the Vietnam Institute of Digital Economy Development noted that foreign investors can still participate through indirect investment accounts at custodian banks. The regulatory framework separately makes clear that direct offshore access for retail users is being closed off once the ban takes effect.

Analysts at AurPay Research put it plainly: the era of unfettered access to Vietnam's 20 million crypto users is ending, replaced by a tightly controlled domestic oligopoly.

Markets with large informal crypto userbases, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria, where crypto holds informal or semi-legal status, are likely watching closely how Vietnam enforces these restrictions once the first licence is finally issued.