Vietnam Takes Deep Dive In Crypto To Develop Legal Bitcoin Framework: Is It The Next El Salvador?

Vietnam is researching cryptocurrencies and their impact as it prepares to build a legal framework that could integrate digital assets such as Bitcoin BTC/USD into its digital economy.

What Happened: Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai ordered the country’s Ministry of Finance to research the implementation of a crypto legal framework alongside the Ministries of Justice, Information and Communications and the State Bank of Vietnam, according to a Monday report by local news outlet Vietnamnet.

This step is particularly noteworthy when considering that the nation's central bank banned the use of Bitcoin as a means of payment in 2017, while leaving crypto trading and holding legal.

See Also: IS REGULATION BAD FOR CRYPTO? 

Vietnam's government first started looking into cryptocurrencies when in August 2017 (the year of the Bitcoin payment ban) Nguyen Xuan Phuc — who was at the time the country's prime minister — issued Decision 1255 which was looking to establish a crypto legal framework. Khai is now building on that decree by ordering the asset class to be studied more in-depth and establishing how long the development of a legal framework would take.

BTC Price Action: As of press time, Bitcoin is trading at about $47,800 after seeing its price increase by about 1% over the last 24 hours.