The Vietnamese government promulgated Decree No. 284/2026/NĐ-CP, establishing administrative sanctions for violations related to crypto assets and the crypto asset market.
The decree sets specific fines, operational suspensions, and remedial measures for unauthorized market activities, reporting failures, and anti-money laundering non-compliance under the country’s pilot crypto market framework. It takes effect on Sept. 1, 2026, and will remain active for the duration of Resolution No. 05/2025/NQ-CP. This news is first reported by The Block.
Fines and Sanctions Framework
According to the rules, machine translated to English, the decree caps administrative fines at 200,000,000 VND ($7,860) for organizations and 100,000,000 VND ($3,930) for individuals. Additional sanctioning forms include the confiscation of violation exhibits, the deprivation of service provider licenses for one to three months, and operational suspensions ranging from one to 12 months for offering, issuing, providing services for, or trading crypto assets.
Remedial measures mandate violating entities to destroy or rectify false information, return illegal profits within 60 days, cancel unauthorized token offerings and refund collected investor funds within three working days, or pay the equivalent monetary value of consumed or dispersed violation exhibits within 30 days.
Service Provider and Issuer Regulations
Crypto asset service provider organizations operating without a license or advertising unlicensed crypto services face fines ranging from 180,000,000 VND to 200,000,000 VND. Service providers are also subject to fines between 100,000,000 VND and 150,000,000 VND for failing to segregate customer funds and assets, failing to monitor trading activities, failing to protect customer assets, or failing to store data on servers located in Vietnam.
Issuing organizations face fines between 150,000,000 VND and 200,000,000 VND for offering crypto assets to unauthorized subjects, failing to publish prospectus documents on designated portals, or issuing assets without meeting regulatory conditions. Domestic retail investors who trade crypto assets outside of service providers licensed by the Ministry of Finance face fines between 30,000,000 VND and 50,000,000 VND.
Foreign Investor and Banking Mandates
Foreign investors who violate rules on opening, closing, or using payment accounts for crypto transactions in Vietnam face fines between 30,000,000 VND and 50,000,000 VND. Foreign investors providing inaccurate or incomplete documentation to licensed banks face fines from 70,000,000 VND to 100,000,000 VND.
Permitted banks that fail to properly inspect or retain transaction records, fail to establish internal specialized account procedures, or execute non-compliant account transactions face fines up to 100,000,000 VND.
Anti-Money Laundering and Data Regulations
Unlawful collection, storage, exchange, sale, or disclosure of crypto asset data and account information carries fines from 150,000,000 VND to 200,000,000 VND, alongside a potential trading suspension of one to three months.
Failure to perform customer identification, risk assessments, or update blacklists under Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) regulations carries fines up to 120,000,000 VND. Entities failing to report suspicious transactions, failing to apply transaction delay measures, or opening anonymous and fake-named accounts face fines reaching the 200,000,000 VND maximum limit.
Enforcement and Sanctioning Authority
The statute of limitations for administrative enforcement under the decree is one year. Administrative violation records and sanctions may be issued by designated officials from the State Securities Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank of Vietnam, Provincial People’s Committees, and specialized divisions within the Ministry of Public Security.
This article is published on BitPinas: Vietnam to Fine Retail Investors for Trading Through Unlicensed Crypto Platforms
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