Key Insights:
- Crypto exchange Bithumb has joined forces with SSI Digital to bid for a rare digital asset license in the increasingly competitive Vietnam market.
- As part of the pilot program, Vietnam mandates that exchanges of cryptocurrencies have a minimum capital of $380 million.
- The foreign expansion comes after Bithumb has faced controversy over its operations and postponed an IPO in South Korea amid increasing regulatory scrutiny.
Crypto exchange Bithumb has stepped up its Asia expansion efforts by forming a deal with SSI Digital in Vietnam. The contract comes after the Vietnamese authorities speed up efforts to approve legal digital asset trading platforms across the country.
In Vietnam, Bithumb inked a memorandum of understanding with its subsidiary called SSI Digital, which is under SSI Securities. The deal may eventually pave the way for Bithumb to purchase stakes in an approved exchange in Vietnam’s operating structure.
The Vietnam pilot project is changing the regional trading aspirations.
In September 2025, Vietnam introduced its first pilot program for digital assets, which will be active for five years, with the goal of regulating the domestic exchanges. Participating companies need to have a minimum capital of 10 trillion dong or about $380 million.
Foreign ownership restrictions are remained strict as the regulators have procured the maximum ownership limit of foreign investors in local exchanges as 49%. Vietnamese authorities are also mulling further restrictions on black-listed online trading platforms that are not registered and approved in Vietnam.
Recently, the competition for limited operating licenses has been growing rapidly among large financial institutions in Vietnam and area investors. Reuters earlier had reported successful advancement of affiliates with Techcombank, VPBank, LPBank, Sun Group and VIX Securities.
One popular solution is the VPBank-backed CAEX, whose partnership with OKX Ventures and HashKey Capital was also confirmed earlier this year. They are said to have allowed CAEX to meet Vietnam’s ministerial pilot programme’s minimum capital requirements.
Bithumb expansion strengthens Southeast Asian crypto infrastructure.
In spite of rather vague and low regulations for the burgeoning digital asset sector in Vietnam, the adoption of cryptocurrencies keeps growing at an accelerated rate in the country. According to the industry research findings, released by blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, Vietnam is the 4th country in the world in terms of cryptocurrency adoption.
In 2022, SSI Securities introduced a new business line under the name SSI Digital Technology for the blockchain business, and continues to be one of the top brokerage firms in Vietnam. This history puts Bithumb in a position of having an established financial ally with substantial interest in regulated digital asset infrastructure development.
Both parties pledge to further enhance a few operational fields that will facilitate the conduct of future exchanges in Vietnam’s changing context under their agreement. Cooperation involves plans for exchange technology systems, wallet infrastructure, custody, compliance frameworks, institutional services and operational security enhancements.
In addition, Bithumb noted that regulatory compliance is still crucial in all its expansion plans abroad in the future. The two companies did not say at this time whether a formal license application will be filed and if it has been officially concluded that investment negotiations.
Home regulatory scrutines to bite into Bithumb Global Strategy.
Bithumb is expanding overseas at a time when it is facing increasing regulatory scrutiny in recent months in South Korea. However, while the company had planned an IPO for sometime after 2028, it was due to ongoing compliance issues within the company.
Management says they were still required to bolster accounting systems and controls after previous measures imposed by financial authorities in recent times. It got worse when Bithumb accidentally shared 620,000 Bitcoin in promotional events earlier.
This confusion of account balances on the trading platform cost over $40 billion, but for a short time. The volatility in the market rose significantly after that and the Bithumb retrieved around 99.7% of missing assets from the market affected participants successfully.
Collaboration is ongoing in the legal proceedings that have been ongoing with the purpose of getting the other 7 bitcoins that were part of that operating incident. In a nutshell, Bithumb’s Vietnam play seems to be a move that is much more than a normal regional expansion and diversification strategy.
The growing Asian competition is also seen by the crypto market’s expansion.
Partnerships between established financial institutions and large digital asset exchanges in Asia are becoming a major element of the crypto infrastructure competition in the region. While before exchanges were mainly concerned with domestic growth strategies, this is now complemented by more and more encouragement from the regulators to internationally compliant operational structures.
The deal comes as Bithumb joins the trend of early-stage investments by various crypto-giant exchanges in emerging regulated markets where they hope to grab a piece of the cake before that market becomes fully dominated by one or more exchanges. Along with their high retail rates and developing regulation, Vietnam continues to be a market for aggressive institutional retail expansion across Asia.
The cooperation is a sign of the importance of regulated international expansion for investors’ exchange business strategies and positioning in the future. Additionally, the growing demand for custody solutions, compliance solutions, and localized financial infrastructure could be another avenue for developers and blockchain startup companies to benefit.
It is still unclear if Bithumb will be granted one of Vietnam’s scarce licenses in the future, as the licenses are currently competitive. However, the collaboration further enhances Bithumb’s regional footprint and further consolidates Vietnam’s presence in Asia’s fast-growing digital asset market.
FAQs
1. What was the reason behind Bithumb’s partnership with SSI Digital?
Bithumb and SSI Digital co-led a roundtable discussion on the existing possibilities for regulation and licensure of digital asset exchanges in Vietnam.
2. What are the regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges in Vietnam?
Vietnam needs licensed exchanges with a capital of 10 trillion dong, limiting the participation of foreign ownership to below 49% levels.
3. What’s the level of significance of Vietnam to digital assets?
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported that Vietnam will be one of the leading markets in the world for cryptocurrency adoption in 2025.
4. What will be the services that Bithumb and SSID will create together?
The two firms will work together in the support of custody solutions, compliance protocol, exchange platform, wallet technology and institutional business services.
5. What is the reason that Bithumb is under pressure in South Korea?
The regulatory concerns towards Bithumb stem from several factors, such as operational errors, compliance problems, and the slippage of the public offering timeline.
