Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance has agreed to establish a research group charged with studying and making policy proposals regarding cryptocurrencies and virtual assets. The group, which was announced on Monday, will be comprised of nine members led by the vice chairman of the State Securities Commission, Pham Hong Son. The additional members include other representatives of the General Department of Taxation — the country’s securities regulator — the National Institute for Finance, the General Department of Vietnam Customs, and the Department of Banking and Financial Institutions of the State Bank of Vietnam. The research group will help the country stay …

Vietnamese online ticketing agency Future.Travel now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) payments via the Lightning Network (LN), with funds being converted into local currency at the time of sale. To enable LN-based Bitcoin payments, Future.Travel collaborated with Canada-based tech firm Neutronpay, which will provide Future.Travel its multi-currency merchant platform, according to an April 20 announcement. With the newly integrated option, the BTC transaction processing time will ostensibly be cut down to three to four seconds in most cases. Eliminating fraud, reducing transaction processing time Overall, Future.Travel has been supporting BTC payments for over six years and recently added other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched peer-to-peer (P2P) trading for the Vietnamese dong (VND). Vietnam-based Binance users can now directly purchase and sell major cryptocurrencies using VND through the latest versions of the Binance P2P mobile app on iOS and Android. The four supported cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), major stablecoin Tether (USDT) as well as Binance’s native cryptocurrency Binance Coin (BNB), the firm said in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 20. Vietnamese dong is the second fiat currency on Binance’s P2P While Binance has been actively rolling out multiple global fiat onramps for currencies like …

Cái Mép International Terminal (CMIT), located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, announced Dec. 19, that it had joined the TradeLens blockchain platform. CMIT is one of the largest terminals in the Cái Mép-Thị Vải deep-water gateway port complex, providing a direct link from Vietnam to European, North American and Asian markets. CMIT general director, Jan Bandstra said that the decision to join the blockchain-based program was driven by customer demand for instant shipping data. Having transparent, accessible cargo data is essential for the complexities of the global shipping industry, as CMIT deputy director Nguyen Xuan Ky illustrated: “A seafood …

Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange OKEx has secured support from four new partners, including hardware crypto wallet Ledger, for its utility token OKB. OKEx announced the news in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 22, detailing that it had partnered with Ledger, Vietnam-based over-the-counter exchange Aliniex, fiat-to-crypto exchange Bvnex, and virtual blockchain-powered retailer Cryptomall. Bringing crypto trades into the mainstream The collaboration is aimed at moving the OKB ecosystem into the mainstream, as well as making it more comprehensive for its global user base. The company specified in the release, that OKB will be listed on Ledger’s hardware crypto wallet, …

Ho Chi Minh City will develop a blockchain-oriented regulatory framework for the development of smart cities. Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh’s People's Committee, announced the news during the sixth annual international conference of Saigon High-Tech Park (SHTP), Viet Nam News reports Nov. 11. At the same event, the SHTP, an incubator for high tech businesses, signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s CBA Ventures to promote the research and application of blockchain technology. Le Bich Loan, a senior exec at the Saigon Hi-Tech Park’s board of management, emphasized that blockchain tech has made financial …

A 48-year old Thai man who called himself the “cryptocurrency wizard” has been arrested in Bangkok over his alleged role in a 500 million baht ($16.3 million) crypto exchange fraud. The Bangkok Post reports on Sept. 5 that police nabbed Mana Jumuang, who has been under an arrest warrant since Aug. 23, while he was playing soccer in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district yesterday. A $16.3 million scheme with victims across 10 countries According Pol Maj Gen Jiraphop Phuridet, commander of the Bangkok police’s Crime Suppression Division, Jumuang is accused of being part of a Thai-Vietnamese criminal group that targeted victims …

As the appeal of cryptocurrency has grown, so has the opportunity for scammers to part naive investors from their money. 2019 has been no exception, with cryptocurrency and blockchain forensics company Ciphertrace dubbing it “the year of the exit scam.” Exit scams are not a new phenomenon, with a 2018 report conducted by Statis Group revealing over 80% of initial coin offerings (ICOs) in that year to have been fraudulent. Here, Cointelegraph explains exit scams and how to spot them, as well as a look at some of the biggest scams that have been discovered by various researchers. What are …

Vietnam’s CMC Telecom and American cloud service provider Akamai have signed a joint agreement to deliver security services to a blockchain-based trading floor, according to a report shared on CMC’s website on May 2. Akamai is one of the biggest global distributed computing platforms, with revenue in 2017 of more than $2.5 billion. Both providers are going to give support to BCNEX, which offers support services for blockchain-based startups in Vietnam. According to the report, the aim of the partnership is to keep user data safe and prevent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The co-founder and CEO of BCNEX, Ngo Hoang …

Technology company FPT Corporation and financial services firm SBI Holdings Inc have jointly invested $3 million in Vietnamese blockchain startup Utop, local English language daily news outlet Viet Nam News reported on April 19. FPT Corporation and SBI Holdings Inc have reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to invest $3 million in joint venture Utop, a technology startup based on FPT’s enterprise blockchain platform dubbed akaChain. Utop is designed to gain and redeem loyalty points at merchants within the same network. The project will purportedly enable small businesses registered on the network to reduce costs and secure data through …

Disclaimer. This article has been updated to reflect that Vietnam is still working on crypto regulation, and that there is no current legal framework for cryptocurrency exchanges. Vietnam’s largest distribution company Linh Thanh Group has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Swiss blockchain company KRONN Ventures AG to establish a cryptocurrency exchange, according to a press release published on March 22. The collaboration is designed to facilitate the production of digital currency and the creation of a cryptocurrency exchange in Vietnam, to which the companies have supposedly received an appropriate license. According to the press release, the new exchange …

Global retail giant Auchan is expanding TE-FOOD’s blockchain solution to improve the transparency of products’ history, U.S.-based news agency Cision PRWeb reports today, Dec. 4. The French retail group, which is reportedly the 13th largest food retailer globally with operations in 17 countries, has extended TE-FOOD’s FoodChain solution to five more countries. FoodChain is the international traceability information ledger by TE-FOOD, first applied by Auchan in its Vietnam branch. After a 18-month test of TE-FOOD’s blockchain tool in Vietnam, Auchan has now decided to deploy the products’ traceability solution in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Senegal. The blockchain-powered retail monitoring …