The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is one of the most promising Asian jurisdictions in terms of cryptocurrency adoption and trading.

When you consider that Asia is the region with the highest levels of digital currency circulation on a daily basis, it becomes even more impressive to know that Vietnam is the regional leader in this regard.

As of late 2021, Vietnam was ranked at the top of the list of nations with the highest per capita ownership of cryptocurrency tokens.

We know this from a survey conducted by financial analytics firm Finder in 2021, where the report showed that more than 40% of those who participated in the survey stated that they held tokens in digital wallets.

Cryptocurrency transactions in Vietnam are more numerous than in El Salvador, the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender for all monetary transactions.

Aside from its high levels of cryptocurrency adoption and activity, Vietnam is also surprising in terms of how the government has been handling regulatory aspects of digital currency ownership, payments, and trading.

As of February 2022, the best way to describe the regulatory climate of cryptocurrencies in Vietnam would be to call it auspicious. To be clear, issuing or exchanging digital currencies

in Vietnam is not legal, but it is not prohibited, and it is largely free from enforcement. It should be noted that this situation is temporary because the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance has a committee in place to explore the regulatory future of cryptocurrencies from now through 2025.

The good people of Vietnam are not worried about being prevented from holding, using, or trading tokens. The reason the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) enacted a 2017 regulation that deemed the issuance, ownership, and usage of cryptocurrencies illegal was that a few individuals and organizations set up fraudulent operations involving Bitcoin and other tokens.

Once these criminal operations were taken down, the SBV implemented the aforementioned regulation as a means of consumer protection. Most legal analysts believe that we should see full legislation and rulemaking of digital currencies in Vietnam over the next few years.

For the time being, cryptocurrency trading in Vietnam continues to thrive. This country is served by major online exchange platforms that are familiar with the high levels of token adoption.

Vietnamese people are known to be tech-savvy, and quite a few blockchain development firms actively operate in and around the vast Ho Chi Minh metropolitan area.

As for the future of cryptocurrency regulation in Vietnam, things look very hopeful because the government has been interested in the widespread use of digital payment platforms.

The SBV has been considering the development of a sovereign digital currency, and there is strong support for blockchain development that does not necessarily involve financial services or payment systems.

Law firms that have evaluated this situation believe that the first step should be to define cryptocurrency as property, which means revising Article 105 of the Vietnamese Civil Code. Once this definition is established, legal recognition would allow legislators and regulators to determine how cryptocurrencies should be held, used, and traded in the country.