Vietnam launches a five-year cryptocurrency pilot! Will digital assets be officially recognized by 2026?

In the global crypto market landscape, Vietnam has always been a unique and important presence. This Southeast Asian country boasts one of the highest cryptocurrency adoption rates in the world, and the enthusiasm for digital assets among its people continues to rise. However, this prosperity has long existed in a regulatory gray area. Now, this situation is about to change dramatically. On September 9, 2025, the Vietnamese government officially passed a resolution to launch a five-year pilot project for cryptocurrency trading, marking a critical shift from tacitly allowing public participation to actively guiding and strictly controlling it. This initiative not only sets clear "rules of the game" for Vietnam's vast crypto market but also echoes the digital asset law that will take effect in 2026, signaling the imminent arrival of a new, compliant crypto era in Vietnam.

Cautious yet resolute digital asset experiment

Unlike the open regulatory sandboxes of some countries, Vietnam's pilot program has set extremely strict admission criteria from the very beginning. Its core idea is to ensure local control and market stability while selecting strong participants.

The resolution clearly stipulates the following core requirements: High capital threshold: Any company wishing to operate a cryptocurrency trading platform in Vietnam must have a minimum paid-up capital of 100 trillion Vietnamese Dong (approximately 3.8 billion USD). This is an extremely high threshold aimed at excluding the vast majority of small startups and participants with insufficient capital, ensuring that only financially strong heavyweight players can enter the market. Strict localization control: The pilot platform must be operated by a company registered in Vietnam, and foreign ownership must not exceed 49%. This regulation ensures that Vietnam has absolute control over the local crypto market. Moreover, it is mandatory that at least 65% of the equity must come from institutional investors such as banks, brokerages, insurance companies, fund management companies, or qualified technology companies, further strengthening the platform's stability and compliance. Vietnamese Dong-based settlement: All cryptocurrency issuance, trading, and settlement on the pilot platform must be conducted in Vietnam's legal tender—Vietnamese Dong (VND). This is partly to facilitate regulation and tracking of fund flows, and partly to reinforce the central position of the Vietnamese Dong in the digital economy. Strict shareholder background checks: The resolution also requires that the shareholders and capital contributors of the license application companies must have been profitable for at least the two consecutive years prior to the application. This once again raises the entry threshold, aiming to attract entities with sound financial conditions and stable operations.

Overall, these stringent regulations outline the Vietnamese government's regulatory approach: to establish a "walled garden" led by local entities with strong capital and institutional support, while keeping the risks at a minimum level while opening up crypto asset trading.

For the millions of existing Crypto Assets holders in Vietnam, this pilot program also provides a clear path. Once the first licensed exchange officially operates, Vietnamese residents will have a six-month transition period to migrate their held digital assets to an approved Compliance platform.

After the "grace period" of six months, the authorities will impose sanctions on trading activities conducted on unlicensed platforms in accordance with existing laws. This strategy clearly indicates that the government's goal is to channel all Crypto Assets activities into regulated avenues to achieve comprehensive oversight.

This shift poses a direct challenge to international exchanges like Binance and Bybit, which currently dominate the Vietnamese market. In the future, if they wish to continue serving Vietnamese users, they may need to seek partnerships with locally compliant enterprises and establish joint ventures to meet the foreign ownership limit of no more than 49%.

It is worth noting that this five-year pilot program is not an isolated policy, but part of the Vietnamese government's systematic and step-by-step strategy to regulate the digital asset market. As early as June 2025, the Vietnamese National Assembly passed the landmark "Law on Digital Technology Industry."

The law will officially take effect on January 1, 2026, and it recognizes the concept of "digital asset" at the national legal level for the first time, clearly distinguishing between "crypto assets" and other virtual tools. At the same time, the bill also strengthens the relevant control measures against money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF).

Therefore, the five-year pilot can be seen as a pressure test and model exploration for the comprehensive implementation of the 2026 Digital Technology Industry Law. Through this controlled "sandbox," the Vietnamese government can observe market reactions, assess risks, and accumulate valuable experience for the eventual establishment of a permanent, nationwide regulatory framework.

From grassroots enthusiasm to national strategy

The reason why the Vietnamese government adopts a strategy of "combining easing and blocking" instead of outright banning is closely related to its astonishing rate of Crypto Assets adoption. According to the "2025 Global Crypto Assets Adoption Index" released by Chainalysis, Vietnam ranks fourth in the world and has topped the list for two consecutive years in 2021 and 2022. Other reports indicate that over 20% (estimated 17 million) of the Vietnamese population owns digital assets.

Faced with such a wide grassroots foundation, simple bans are not only difficult to enforce but may also push significant economic activities underground, bringing more risks. Therefore, establishing compliant channels to embrace and guide this trend has become a more pragmatic choice. In recent years, the Vietnamese government has also begun to actively interact with global crypto industry participants. For example, senior executives from Bybit met with the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance in April 2025 to discuss cooperation on legal frameworks and the establishment of a national digital asset exchange.

In summary, the five-year cryptocurrency pilot program launched by Vietnam is a key turning point in its digital economy development path. It marks the official transition of one of the countries with the highest global crypto adoption rates from an unregulated free market to a new stage that is state-led, with strict rules and high controllability.

By establishing high capital and ownership barriers, Vietnam is carefully crafting a unique crypto market model aimed at balancing financial innovation with national financial security. Although this path is filled with caution, its direction is remarkably steadfast. As the effective date of the digital asset law in 2026 approaches, this five-year pilot project will provide Vietnam, and other emerging markets around the world, with a valuable case on how to integrate Crypto Assets into the national economic system. The whole world will closely watch how this grand experiment unfolds in the heart of Southeast Asia.