For the last few decades, Vietnam has made great strides in building and maintaining its economy with rapid GDP growth. The standard of living has risen with better education and health leading to a stronger population. With no signs of stopping, the country is now making headway in developing its technology and financial sector. Through the predicted increase of smartphone ownership in the near future, experts believe that app-based, blockchain financial services will provide the underbanked the resources they need to grow their wealth or establish financial histories.

Interest in blockchain technologies in the country is evidently on the rise. During last year’s Vietnam Blockchain Week conference, organized by Infinity Blockchain Labs, more than 2,000 people attended. On top of this, blockchain is believed by top researchers to bring a commercial benefit of 1 trillion USD for SMEs and especially those in newly-emerged markets like Vietnam.

Considering the growing popularity of this emerging technology, the Vietnamese government has responded in kind. Nguyen Van Binh, Head of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission, spoke at the ‘Blockchain Forum: Vision and Development’ event and explained that they will continue to monitor, encourage, and take advantage of blockchain technology as well as study and develop policies and regulatory framework to minimize associated risks.

During the forum, the expert participants agreed that Vietnam needs to answer four issues. First, transaction and goods purchasing on blockchain should be encouraged on a national level. Second, the government needs to entice enterprises to apply blockchain into their businesses. Third, a regulatory framework should be created to protect all the involving parties. Lastly, all regulatory agencies need to review their current laws and policies to eliminate the articles which may limit the growth of emerging technologies.

Seeing the significant growth Vietnam is about to make, several startups have popped up within the country that utilizes blockchain as its core technology.

• Triip, a Vietnamese travel company is making a name for itself by offering its customers the chance to monetize their data with cryptocurrency rewards using blockchain. Through their own cryptocurrency, TriipMiles, the company will buy information from customers about their upcoming travel plans. The customer can then use the cryptocurrency for bookings with Triip. Data brought through this method will be sold to hotels, restaurants and other service providers for target marketing.

• Kyber Network is an Ethereum blockchain platform that allows instantaneous exchange and conversion of cryptocurrencies with high liquidity and without the order book. For example, vendors are able to accept payments in multiple tokens on their e-commerce platforms yet receiving in their preferred token. In addition, DApps can allow users who are not their token holders to utilize their platform and services with other tokens, and decentralized financial projects have the means to rebalance their portfolio instantly.

• TomoChain, a blockchain platform that allows developers to efficiently create stable and secure decentralized applications (DApps) that can be easily scaled. The goal of the platform is to give app developers everywhere around the world access to global infrastructure, opening up opportunities. Long Vuong, founder, and CEO of TomoChain explained that it is no longer just people in Silicon Valley building tech for the world anymore but those in Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam as well. He wanted a platform where everyone can join and have a fair playing field.

With the country taking initiatives in exploring the possibility of wide-usage of blockchain in a spread of industries as well as many companies showing interest, Vietnam could very well be a hub for blockchain development in the future.