Crypto Culture in Vietnam 🇻🇳

If you've ever visited Vietnam,
you'll know it's a staggeringly Beautiful country. In the Northeast,
there is Ha Long Bay whose limestone Islands are among the world's
most photographed natural structures. The country's verdant deplatformed
rice fields Have featured on travel, book jackets
and magazine covers for decades. Vietnamese food is famously delicious
and the country's Culinary scene is vibrant, inventive
and imitated all over the world. But the one thing Vietnam wasn't renewed
for until quite recently Was its start up sector. Over this area, Vietnam has blossomed
since Bitcoin's emergence And crypto's migration into the media
limelight. Vietnamese entrepreneurs
have capitalized on Crypto's popularity And also created some remarkably valuable
crypto companies, Including the likes of Sky Mavis and Kyber
Network, to name a few. These and many other crypto
companies are launched from Vietnam Have cemented the country's reputation
as a prime location For tech firms who want to expand
their operations abroad. Case in point Apple recently Moved some of its AirPods production
from China to Vietnam, and Google Has shifted a portion of its pixel phone
manufacturing there as well. Similarly,
both Microsoft and Amazon have started Partially shipping some of their products
from Vietnam as well. So what's more
is The New York Times reports That Vietnamese real estate
brokers are busier than ever Showing their commercial properties
to multinational firms like Apple, Who are also eager
to expand their operations in Vietnam. Over the dozens of crypto firms
who have launched from Vietnam already. Sky Mavis, who developed the blockchain
based game. Axie Infinity is by far
the greatest success story. Although it has experienced
a dip in popularity since its peak last Year, the game once boasted
nearly 3 million monthly active users, And its market cap today
sits at over 770 million U.S. Dollars.

Of course, Axie
isn't the only successful crypto firm To have launched in Vietnam,
both at COIN 98 and also Kyber network Have already made a serious
waves in crypto And bought billions of dollars
to the industry as well. These crypto companies
no doubt contributed to Vietnam's somewhat Surprising status as the country with the
highest rate of crypto adoption on Earth. That's right. Vietnam, a country
whose economy globally ranks 39th largest By GDP, is leading the charge towards
mainstream crypto adoption. In fact, one of Finder’s surveys
found that 41% of Vietnamese respondents Own crypto. However, you should bear in mind
that finder's figure doesn't represent The true percentage of Vietnamese people
who own crypto, which is closer to 20% Or one in every five people,
according to Chainanalysis. Why do so many Vietnamese
people own crypto? And how is Vietnam outpacing the U.S. And every European country
in terms of crypto adoption? One of the many possible answers
is that Vietnam's government Has a generally positive attitude
towards crypto regulation. So far, The government hasn't imposed many rules
or regulations on cryptocurrencies, Other than to clarify that you can't pay
for goods or services with crypto. For now at least,
the government has also recently passed An investment law that clarified crypto
status as a legal investment vehicle, Meaning Vietnamese citizens
can legally invest their money in crypto. Additionally, the country's Ministry of Finance
is developing a digital asset framework Which will set out the country's strategy
towards growing its digital economy. Another explanation for Vietnam's positive
stance on crypto is that most Vietnamese People don't have access
to a wide range of investment vehicles From which they could earn passive
revenue. And a sense crypto
soared to record highs in 2020 and 2021. It's likely that lots of Vietnamese
people will saw crypto As an exciting new profit source
and jumped on the bandwagon.

One academic who supports this idea is Bin
Nguyen, the senior program Manager of finance at the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology. Nguyen studies how Vietnamese
people use crypto, and he's found that The market is strongly retail driven,
which means that most Vietnamese Crypto investors Want to actually grow their wealth
rather than hedge against inflation. We should also consider the possibility
that some Vietnamese people Are simply buying crypto
in order to gamble. Why would they do this? Well, the short answer
is that most forms of gambling Are illegal in Vietnam,
and they also have been for generations. Most locals can't visit a nearby casino
because in order to do so, They have to prove that their monthly
earnings exceed 10 million VND Or $426 per month
before they can even get through the door. For context, the average wage
in Vietnam is around 6.1 VND or around $260 a month. And as such, it's plausible that at least
some people are trying to buy crypto To simply satisfy their gambling urges
rather than as an investment. And let's not forget that most Vietnamese
expatriates who live and work Abroad send money home to their families
who still live in Vietnam. These remittance payments
could actually account For as much as 6.3% of Vietnam's GDP. As such, it isn't surprising That so many of Vietnam's expats
could use crypto to send their money home. When you consider
how low the transfer fees are compared To those often charged by banks
and transfer services, One final consideration is Vietnam's bank
lost population. Those who live and work without bank
accounts research actually suggest That just 30 million Vietnamese
people from a total of 90 million Have a bank account. Other studies show that Vietnamese
people collectively have at least 70 Million smartphones or more than twice
their number of bank accounts. Together, these two statistics indicate
that Vietnamese people urgently Need somewhere to store their

Cash, and crypto platforms
can provide a convenient solution. There doesn't need to be just one reason
to explain why Crypto is so popular In Vietnam. However, we should also consider the fact
that several Vietnamese crypto companies Have enjoyed extraordinary success
over the past few years, Which will have boosted the popularity
of digital assets within Vietnam. Take Coin98 for instance,
which was founded by Thanh Lee And Vinh The Nguyen in the city of Ho
Chi Minh in 2017. The company has enjoyed
a remarkable success In its relatively short history,
and it's also very popular across Asia. In case you aren't familiar with Coin98
it's a DeFi platform through Which you can move and swap assets
and also different tokens across Different blockchains and earn interest
from staking and also yield farming. Most of its services revolve around
its multichain compatible wallet, Which lets you interact with all your
crypto wallet on different blockchains Like Ethereum, Binance, Smart Chain
and Solana by using just one password. At the time of this video, The platform's token C98
at a market cap of over $50 million. Although it was floating around at $1
billion in August of 2021, crypto firms Like Coin98
draw the attention of foreign investors And the global crypto
community to Vietnam, Which is great for Vietnam's economy,
especially its startup sector. Another platform which has enjoyed
similar success and raised Vietnam's profile within the crypto space
is the Kyber Network, A decentralized exchange
DEX aggregator and liquidity platform. In layman's terms, Kyber provides
liquidity for various DEFI applications, Including its own DEX,
and it also lets you exchange Various tokens and coins
without an intermediary. During its initial funding round in 2017, The Kyber team raised $52 million,
which at the time Made it the most successful startup
in Vietnam's history. And in April of 2022 at the Kyber network
became the third of Vietnamese Crypto firm to reach $1 billion
in a market capitalization. So both Coin98 and Kyber achieved success
remarkably quickly and also both

Helped to solidify Vietnam's reputation
as a hub for crypto investment. However, neither comes close To matching the success
of Vietnam's runaway crypto success story. Actually, Infinity Axie
Infinity is a NFT based Game developed by Sky Mavis,
which launched in Vietnam. In case you haven't played Axie Infinity,
the game involves Creating adorable little monsters
and battling them against Other equally adorable little monsters
who belong to other players. Unlike other turn based games,
your whole team battles another team At once as opposed to one character
battling another character each term. If you win your battles, you can either
gather up smooth love potion or SLP, Which essentially works
like experienced points, Except that you can sell them for profit
or consume them To actually breed more axes,
which you can also sell for profit. Actually was partially inspired
by CryptoKitties, A blockchain game that momentarily
took over the world in 2017 And by Pokemon,
which needs no introduction and which uses A similar turn based fighting system
to that which of actually uses today? Unlike most of the video games
that came before it, you actually own Your in-game items in actually
including your creations called AXS. This is because each axie is an NFT,
which means that you can sell your AXS And also SLP. This NFT based functionality
remedied that Web3 gamers See as a fundamental flaw in Web 2.0
gaming model that you don't actually own Your in-game items and can therefore
lose access to them arbitrarirly. Axie runs on the Ethereum blockchain,
which is the most used blockchain For NFT, is and has a dedicated sidechain
called Ronin, Which reduces the fees for trading axes
and other in-game items like SLP. This Ronin sidechain was considered
a huge success By the Axie community right up
until it was hacked in March of 2022. North Korean hackers
fooled a Ronin engineer Into downloading a document
riddled with malware That also let the hackers
control Ronin's validator nodes. This let them drain it
$600 million from the sidechains fund,

And most of which belong
to the actually player community. In the months leading up to the Ronin
hack, 2.5 million people were playing Axie Every month and it was also trading
at $10 Billion in a market capitalization, Which made it one of the most popular
and valuable games on earth. But how did this plucky startup in Ho
Chi Minh, Achieve an enormous success
in such a short time span? The answer
It seems that axes play to earn model Hit the markets at the perfect time
when much of the world was locked down And also unable to work in countries
where most people can't work from home Like the Philippines and Vietnam
actually provided something of a lifeline As it gave them a way to earn some much
needed cash during the lockdown. When word got out about how much money
you can make from playing a video game. Axes Popularity exploded overnight. The game's monthly player account
soared from 20,000 in July 2020 To nearly 3 million in December of 2021. This was great news for Axie’s community
and even better news for Vietnam. Axes. Success led to many discussions
in the media about the country's New start ups as a fast
growing startup hub. Unfortunately, Axes runaway success
eventually led to an inflationary problem Caused by too much sloppy farming
and not enough axes being created. And the only way to destroy
SLP is by creating AXS, displays, Sky
Mavis efforts to intervene. This inflation caused SLP price to crash,
and at which point Millions of players
sold their axes and abandoned the game. At the time of this video axes Monthly player count is hovering at around
470,000 players, Regardless of axes
currently diminished player count Or whether its popularity
will ever recover. Most will agree
that axes served as a huge onramp For thousands of new crypto users,
especially in Vietnam. This and Vietnam's bustling
crypto startup scene undoubtedly Contributed towards the crypto's
growth throughout 2020 and 2021 And will certainly continue
to do so in the future.