All right, one more blog post about cryptocurrency. A little over a week ago, the Ho Chi Minh City police announced they busted a major gambling ring (see article from Bloomberg here). They arrested 59 people and confiscated 40 laptops, over 70 cell phones, ATM cards, and over 130,000USD worth of Vietnamese Dong. The gambling [...]
In September, the government of Laos authorized six companies to mine and trade cryptocurrency. This last week they announced that as part of the country's expansion into the cryptocurrency markets, they anticipate to include nearly 200 million USD in their 2022 national budget from Bitcoin mining. The theory is that, using the massive amounts of [...]
For some time now, Indochine Counsel has been part of the Law Firm Network (LFN) and participated in their sometimes publications. Just recently we provided a chapter on Vietnam's treatment of cryptocurrency. As this blog regularly focuses on issues related to e-commerce and technology we wanted to make our readers aware of the publication of [...]
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or cryptographic tokens are unique digital signatures or tokens created by using blockchain technology, in particular using relevant platforms that operate on blockchains, which are used for certifying ownership of digital files of real or intangible assets. Cryptographic tokens represent a set of rules, encoded in a smart contract – the token [...]
In the last few days, it's been hard to ignore the fact that (according to this VN Express article) Vietnam leads the world in cryptocurrency adoption. A survey by US-based consultancy Finder found that of survey respondents 41% of those based in Vietnam had invested in cryptocurrency, with 28% of the total investing in Bitcoin. [...]
Lately, I've been busy with some research surrounding crowdfunding in Vietnam. Perhaps I'll address some of those issues at a later date, but right now I want to discuss something I discovered during that research. As of 1 July 2019, a Singaporean company VNDC Holding PTE., LTD., introduced the VNDC stablecoin to the market (You [...]
Last month the Government issued a draft decree on the process for obtaining and using electronic IDs in Vietnam. This comes as a welcome installment in Vietnam's slowly moving modernization of its legal regulations regarding the internet, data, and digital media. This post will review the basics of the draft decree relevant to most people [...]
Intermediary payment services (IPS) are regulated and licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam. IPS include very specific activities, namely: e-payment infrastructure supply services, including: Switching service; Electronic clearing service; Online payment portal service. Services supporting payment services, including: Authorized collection or payment service; Online money transfer service; E-wallet service. All of these services require [...]
As I've written before, Vietnam currently views cryptocurrency as a prohibited form of payment (see Cryptocurrency in Vietnam). The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has repeatedly made it clear that it does not recognize cryptocurrency or any digital currency as legal tender. Although a recent program initiated a pilot program for e-money (see Mobile Money [...]
I wrote a couple weeks ago about the interest rate cap on loans as applicable to P2P lending in Vietnam (see Interest Rates for P2P Lending in Vietnam) in which I discussed the problem we've seen with P2P lenders being accused of criminally exceeding that cap through the application of fees on loans. Another problem [...]