Buying IOST in Vietnam under the new digital asset rules

The short answer

You cannot buy IOST with Vietnamese dong on any licensed Vietnamese exchange, because none had been confirmed as licensed when we checked. The country passed its first real crypto law, set up a five-year pilot for licensed exchanges, and since 1 September 2026 can fine residents who trade on platforms the Ministry of Finance has not licensed. Most people who own IOST in Vietnam bought crypto with VND through Binance P2P and then traded it for IOST on a global exchange. That route still exists, but it now sits inside a legal grey zone with real fines attached.

This page separates three things that often get mixed up: what the law says, what the regulators are doing, and what users actually do. We explain the rules plainly. We do not tell you to break them. If you are new to the coin itself, start with what IOST is, then come back here for the Vietnamese side.

What the law says

For years Vietnam had no legal category for crypto at all. That changed with the Law on Digital Technology Industry, No. 71/2025/QH15, passed by the National Assembly on 14 June 2025 and in force from 1 January 2026. It defines digital assets for the first time and splits them into virtual assets and crypto assets. Crypto assets are treated as property under the 2015 Civil Code. Article 48 deals with the business conditions for companies that provide crypto-asset services.

The law gives the framework. The detail came from the government through Resolution 05/2025/NQ-CP, dated 9 September 2025, which opened a five-year pilot crypto-asset market. The Ministry of Finance licenses providers, the State Securities Commission supervises them, and the State Bank of Vietnam and the Ministry of Public Security take part. The bar is set very high on purpose. A pilot exchange needs at least VND 10 trillion in charter capital, roughly US$380 million. At least 65% of shareholders must be institutions, foreign ownership is capped at 49%, and at most five providers can take part. All offering and trading must be in VND, and issuing tokens backed by fiat or securities is banned.

Applications opened on 20 January 2026 under Ministry of Finance Decision 96/QĐ-BTC. In March 2026 five applicants reportedly passed initial review: TCEX (Techcombank), CAEX (VPBank, with OKX Ventures and HashKey as investors), SCEX (formerly LPEX, linked to LPBank), VIXEX (VIX Securities) and Vietnam Digital Assets (Sun Group). In September 2026 the head of the State Securities Commission said the first licences were expected within the year. We could not find any licence actually issued by the end of October 2026. Nobody has said which coins a pilot exchange would list, so there is no sign yet that IOST would be among them.

1. 2014 & 2017SBV statementsCrypto is not a legal means of payment
2. 14 Jun 2025Law 71/2025/QH15 passedDigital and crypto assets defined
3. 9 Sep 2025Resolution 05/2025/NQ-CPFive-year licensed pilot opens
4. 1 Jan 2026Law 71 takes effectCrypto assets treated as property
5. 20 Jan 2026Applications openMoF Decision 96/QĐ-BTC
6. 27 Mar 2026Circular 32/2026/TT-BTC0.1% tax on transfers
7. 1 Sep 2026Decree 284/2026 in forceFines for unlicensed trading

Who does what

Four public bodies matter here, and they have different jobs. The government publishes the resolutions and decrees. The Ministry of Finance licenses pilot providers and writes the tax rules. The State Securities Commission supervises the market. The central bank polices payments. If you want to read the original texts, the legal database at Thư Viện Pháp Luật carries them in Vietnamese.

Decree 284 and the fines

Decree 284/2026 is the piece that changes the picture for ordinary users. It took effect on 1 September 2026 and sets administrative fines of up to VND 200 million for crypto violations. Unlicensed platforms that provide crypto services or advertise them face VND 180–200 million. Domestic investors who trade through platforms not licensed by the Ministry of Finance face VND 30–50 million. Simply holding crypto is not fined.

Here is the awkward part. The decree punishes trading on unlicensed platforms at a time when no licensed platform appears to exist. In practice that means every exchange a Vietnamese user can reach, from Binance and OKX to smaller offshore venues, is unlicensed for Vietnamese purposes. Press reports through mid-2026 did not describe enforcement against individual users of these exchanges, and we found none in our research either. A lack of reported cases is not a safe harbour, though. The rule is on the books, and the authorities can start applying it whenever they choose.

Payments ban and the 0.1% tax

The State Bank of Vietnam has said since 2014 and 2017 that bitcoin and similar coins are not legal means of payment. Issuing, supplying or using them to pay is prohibited under Decree 101/2012 as amended by Decree 80/2016, with administrative fines under Decree 88/2019 and possible criminal liability under Article 206 of the Penal Code. We could not confirm the exact fine amount in force, so we leave it out. The practical meaning is simple. You can hold IOST as an asset, but you cannot legally use it to pay a café, a landlord or an online shop in Vietnam.

Tax arrived with Circular 32/2026/TT-BTC, effective 27 March 2026. Individuals pay 0.1% personal income tax on the value of each transfer through a licensed provider, whether the trade made money or lost it. Companies pay 20% corporate income tax on crypto income, and crypto transfers are outside VAT. As a labelled example, selling IOST worth VND 20 million on a licensed venue would mean VND 20,000 in tax. Because the circular is written around licensed providers, it is not clear how it applies to trades on offshore exchanges. We are not tax advisers, so check your own position with a Vietnamese professional and keep records of every trade.

How people reach IOST

IOST has no VND pair anywhere we looked, and it is not offered on Binance P2P either. So the path people describe has two legs. First they buy crypto with dong from another person on a P2P market, paying by bank transfer. Then they trade that crypto for IOST on a global exchange’s order book. Binance P2P is the dominant on-ramp and lists hundreds of crypto ads with payment methods such as “Bank Transfer (Vietnam)”. Other users mention VietQR and Napas 247, and occasionally MoMo or ZaloPay, but we could not confirm those for IOST buyers.

We describe this route so you understand how the market works, not as a recommendation. Under Decree 284 both legs run through platforms that hold no Vietnamese licence. The general version of these steps, for every country, is on our how to buy IOST page.

1. Check the rules and your own risk

   Read the Decree 284 section above. If you decide not to trade on an unlicensed platform, the rest of this list does not apply to you.

2. Buy crypto with VND on a P2P market

   Pick a seller with a long, clean trade history, pay only by bank transfer from an account in your own name, and never release or confirm before the money has arrived on both sides.

3. Trade crypto for IOST

   Use the IOST spot market on a global exchange. See our IOST exchange list for which venues list it and on which networks.

4. Move IOST to your own wallet

   Withdraw to a wallet you control, for example from our IOST wallet guide, after checking that the exchange has IOST withdrawals open.

A worked example makes the costs concrete. Say the P2P price is 26,000 VND per USDT. Paying VND 2.6 million gets you 100 USDT. At a 0.1% spot fee you receive IOST worth 99.9 USDT. Withdrawing on the IOST L1 network then costs a small flat fee in IOST. These numbers are illustrations; P2P prices change all day and differ between sellers. To see what a given amount of IOST is worth in dong right now, use the converter below or the full IOST converter.

Card instead of P2P?

CEX.IO, an exchange running since 2013, sells crypto such as BNB by card in USD, EUR or GBP. It does not list IOST, and the entity that serves Vietnam holds no Vietnamese licence.

Get your first crypto

Vietnam is piloting licensed crypto exchanges, and Decree 284/2026 (in force since 1 September 2026) fines residents who trade on unlicensed platforms. CEX.IO holds no Vietnamese licence — check the rules before signing up.

Venues and their status

IOST trades on a long list of global exchanges, almost all of them through a single crypto pair. None of them is licensed in Vietnam. Binance holds the deepest IOST/USDT book in the world, and our Binance review covers its fees and networks in detail. One detail trips people up: Bybit is popular in Vietnam, but it has no IOST spot market at all. It offers only an IOSTUSDT perpetual contract, which is a leveraged derivative, not a way to own the coin.

Remitano deserves a word, because many Vietnamese users remember it as the home-grown P2P option. We tried to check its current service and its site blocked us, so we cannot say whether it still serves Vietnamese users or what it offers. ONUS and the VNDC token are a clearer case. Vietnamese press reported arrests of people linked to them in March 2026, and we would not use either. For a wider view of how IOST trades in neighbouring countries with licensed local markets, compare IOST in Thailand, where Bitkub runs an IOST/THB book, and IOST in Indonesia.

Two legs, two sets of risk

The P2P leg carries counterparty and bank risk. The exchange leg carries platform and withdrawal risk. Under Decree 284 both also carry legal risk.

Withdrawals, memo and networks

IOST now exists in more than one form, and picking the wrong one is the most common way to lose coins. Native IOST on the original L1 chain is sent to an account name and needs a memo when you deposit to an exchange. The traded token from IOST 3.0 also exists as a BEP-20 token on BNB Chain, sent to a 0x address with no memo. At our last check Binance charged 1 IOST to withdraw on the L1 network, with a memo required, and 29 IOST on BEP-20. Fees change, so read the withdrawal screen every time.

Withdrawals can also pause. After the go-iost v4.0.0 mandatory upgrade in October 2026, exchanges paused IOST deposits and withdrawals for days, and Binance kept withdrawals switched off for longer. Always send a small test first. Our guide to sending IOST explains memos, test transfers and what to do if a deposit goes missing.

Risks specific to Vietnam

The legal risk comes first, and we have covered it above. After that, the risks are mostly practical. P2P trading puts you in direct contact with strangers, and scams there follow familiar patterns: fake payment screenshots, a buyer who reverses a transfer, or money from a stolen account that lands in yours and gets your account frozen. Since 1 September 2025 Vietnamese bank accounts need biometric verification. That has made it harder to run the “mule” accounts behind many P2P frauds, but it has not removed them.

Check the token contract before you buy!

Then there is the coin. IOST trades far below its 2018 peak, its order books outside Binance and Korea are thin, and fake “IOST” tokens circulate on BNB Chain. Chat groups also push fake airdrops and “guaranteed” signals. Our page on whether IOST is safe covers fake tokens and delisting risk, and the live IOST price page shows how volatile it is. Never buy a token because a group admin sent you a contract address.

What to watch next

Three things will decide how IOST fits into Vietnam’s new system. The first is whether the Ministry of Finance actually issues pilot licences, and to whom. The second is which assets those exchanges are allowed to list, since the pilot keeps everything in VND and bans fiat-backed tokens. The third is how hard the authorities lean on Decree 284 once a legal alternative exists. Once a licensed venue is open, the argument that “there is nowhere legal to trade” falls away. We will update this page when any of those facts change. For other markets in the region, see our IOST in Asia hub.