Le Minh Khai, Vice Prime Minister of Vietnam, has issued a notification to the Ministry of Finance asking it to study and amend the laws to build a legal framework for the digital asset market.
In a notice dated last Wednesday, the deputy prime minister instructed the Ministry of Finance to take primary responsibility for developing the legal framework for the cryptocurrency market. The list of instructions includes the identification of specific legal documents that must be modified or supplemented.
The Ministry of Finance would later work together with the Ministry of Justice, Information and Communications and the State Bank of Vietnam to develop a regulatory framework for the digital asset market, reported Vietnam Net.
The three ministries, together with the central bank, will study various legal aspects of digital assets and their effects on the economy.
The new legal framework for the digital asset market will be developed in accordance with Decision 1255, issued by the prime minister in August 2017. In 2017, the government approved Decision 1255, which approves the plan to develop a legal framework for ” virtual assets, digital currencies and virtual currencies”.
Vietnam has had a rocky relationship with cryptocurrencies in recent years. The Southeast Asian nation started by banning Bitcoin transactions in 2014, but came full circle in 2017 when then-Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved BTC as a form of payment. However, in 2018, BTC was banned as a payment mode.
The Vietnamese government then established a cryptocurrency research group in 2020, which was tasked with the responsibility of investigating various developments in the virtual asset market and recommending legal policy proposals.
Despite the lack of a legal framework around the cryptocurrency market in the country, the Vietnamese have the highest percentage of cryptocurrency holders in the entire world. According to the Finder report on cryptocurrency holdings, Vietnam tops the global ranking, with 41% of its population holding cryptocurrencies.
The high holding of cryptocurrencies in the population of Vietnam, coupled with the increasing popularity and adoption of cryptocurrencies in the Asian market, could have prompted the government to call for the development of a legal framework around the nascent market.
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