Vietnam clears path for regulated crypto exchanges

TLDR

Vietnam is shifting from an unregulated gray zone to a tightly controlled pilot regime for domestic crypto exchanges.

1. The government has approved a five year, Ministry of Finance supervised pilot that licenses a small number of high capital domestic exchanges under Resolution 05/2025.
2. Licensed venues must settle all activity in Vietnamese dong and meet strict capital and ownership limits, and Vietnamese users will be pushed off offshore exchanges after a transition period.
3. The key variables now are which platforms win licenses, how fast enforcement against offshore trading ramps up, and whether onshore liquidity can compete with global exchanges.

Deep Dive

1. Pilot Framework Details

Vietnam has created a government supervised pilot program for crypto exchanges through Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ CP, adopted on 9 September 2025, with the Ministry of Finance and State Securities Commission in charge of implementation. The framework sets up a five year sandbox that licenses a small number of domestic platforms and treats crypto more like regulated securities than a free floating asset class.

According to the government program, all offering, issuance, trading, and settlement of crypto assets on licensed venues must be conducted in Vietnamese dong, with no direct crypto stablecoin or foreign currency settlement allowed. Applicants must meet a minimum charter capital of VND 10,000 billion (roughly hundreds of millions of dollars), at least 65 percent must come from institutional investors, and foreign ownership is capped at 49 percent, favoring local control over exchanges that participate in the pilot.

A later update reports that five companies have already passed an initial qualification round for licenses, confirming that the framework is moving from theory to implementation under direct Ministry of Finance oversight.

2. Impact On Users And Exchanges

Vietnam ranks among the top countries globally for crypto adoption, with more than 200 billion dollars equivalent in annual crypto transactions, historically routed mainly through offshore platforms. Regulators now want this flow onshore into licensed exchanges, both to improve oversight and to bring activity within the tax and consumer protection perimeter.

The pilot is strict on behavior outside that perimeter. Six months after the first provider is licensed, domestic investors trading outside Ministry of Finance licensed venues can face administrative penalties or even criminal prosecution, and officials are drafting rules to ban Vietnamese nationals from trading on overseas platforms. For exchanges, the rules require VND settlement, limit foreign capital, and impose demanding transparency and compliance standards, which likely restrict participation to bank linked or heavily funded institutions.

3. What To Watch Next

One early front runner for the pilot is CAEX, reportedly backed by OKX Ventures and HashKey Capital, which has raised roughly VND 10 trillion to satisfy capital requirements and position itself as a launch partner in the first regulated exchange pilot.

The pilot is designed to be phased, allowing regulators to track effectiveness and adjust rules, but the combination of high capital thresholds and foreign ownership caps suggests a small, tightly controlled club of licensees rather than an open market. Investors should watch for three things: the official announcement of the first licensed exchange, any detailed list of which crypto assets will be allowed for trading, and follow up rules on enforcement against offshore platforms that will determine how aggressively the state narrows user access to unlicensed venues.

Conclusion

Vietnam is not liberalizing crypto so much as pulling a large, already active market into a narrow, onshore regulatory funnel with high barriers to entry. The pilot regime could bring better protections and clearer legality for Vietnamese users, but it concentrates power in a few licensed venues and relies on strict enforcement against offshore trading, so the balance between safety, access, and innovation will depend on how regulators implement and adjust the program over the next five years.