Vietnam's Five Companies Pass Initial Review but Have Not Received Crypto Exchange Licenses
Vietnam has not yet issued its first cryptocurrency exchange license. The National Securities Commission's digital asset trading market management agency stated at a summit that five applicant institutions have passed the first round of evaluation and received preliminary approval. They still need to achieve a level four information system security certification and contribute at least 100 trillion Vietnamese dong (approximately $3.83 billion) in charter capital, which must be funded in Vietnamese dong.
The resolution requires institutional shareholders to contribute at least 65%, with over 35% coming from at least two qualified institutions, including banks, brokerages, funds, insurance, or technology companies. Documents seen by Reuters earlier linked the five companies with tech commercial banks, VPBank, LPBank, VIX Securities, and Sun Group. The official timeline for issuing licenses has not been announced and depends on when the companies meet the capital and security assessment requirements.
The penalty decree will take effect from September 1, covering unlicensed services, illegal issuance, customer due diligence, and anti-money laundering loopholes. Experts say that domestic investors will not be penalized for using unlicensed platforms starting that day; according to the pilot arrangement, they will only be required to trade through licensed venues six months after the Ministry of Finance issues a license to the first service provider. The English version of the Vietnam News Agency also stated that penalties for over-the-counter trading will only be implemented after the first licensed venue opens.
The 100 trillion dong threshold effectively locks the licenses within the banking and brokerage sectors. Unlicensed global platforms still serve a large number of Vietnamese retail investors, but their access is limited. The pilot also emphasizes that assets must have physical backing, and this token will be more open to foreign investment, among other constraints, with details to be confirmed in the resolution text.
In terms of market mechanisms, the sellers are the Ministry of Finance, which will issue up to about five pilot quotas, in collaboration with the police and the central bank for supervision. The buyers must gather the capital and level four security of local financial groups. The event-driven factor is the progress disclosed at the summit. Funds will be pre-deposited in the applicant companies' accounts and will not immediately convert into trading volume. The beneficiaries are the five companies that passed the initial review; those under pressure are purely crypto startups lacking sufficient capital and offshore platforms that may lose local traffic after licensing.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Hanoi has framed the exchange as a close relative of bank licenses: 100 trillion dong, institutional shareholder structure, and national-level level four security. The five initial review quotas are almost entirely occupied by local banks and brokerages, effectively shifting retail crypto from global platforms back to freezeable, auditable Vietnamese dong accounts. The penalties were announced on September 1, but actual enforcement against domestic users will wait until the first license is issued and a buffer period is observed, avoiding a situation where users face penalties without licensed options.
The capital pathway is for financial groups to obtain licenses, with foreign investment capped at policy limits, and technology security outsourced to integrators capable of passing level four assessments. Charter capital must be in Vietnamese dong, cutting off shortcuts using tokens to fund capital. The pilot lasts five years, with physical asset anchoring, first open to foreign and then domestic, reflecting capital control logic rather than open competition logic. Global platforms still benefit from high Vietnamese traffic; when the buffer period ends, traffic will either migrate to the five companies or continue in the gray market facing penalties.
Comparatively, Japan's licensing confines retail to licensed venues, South Korea requires real-name accounts from banks, and New York's virtual currency licenses filter national service providers into a minority. The industry phase is about high adoption countries supplementing licenses rather than educating users from scratch. Those who cannot gather 100 trillion will only be able to provide traffic or technology outsourcing to these five companies.
Structural judgment indicates regulatory changes. The mechanism is: first set a high capital threshold to determine who can become a legal venue, then use a buffer period to reclaim residents' trading rights from global platforms. The number of licenses is capped at five, preemptively limiting market competition. The penalty text serves as a switch, with the licensing date being the moment the switch is flipped.
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License thresholds are denominated in local currency, determining who can enter based on bank affiliations.
Penalties can be announced in advance, but enforcement will wait for the first legal venue to open.
Once pilot quotas are capped, competition shifts from the market to the application form.