Vietnam Tapped as Testbed for Real-World Asset Tokenization

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – December 30, 2025 – As the global financial landscape increasingly embraces the digitization of tangible assets, blockchain firm RWA.LTD has announced its official expansion into Vietnam. Selecting Ho Chi Minh City as its strategic hub, the company is embarking on a calculated initiative to explore the deployment of non-financial real-world assets (RWAs) in Southeast Asia, a move that aligns perfectly with Vietnam's landmark regulatory reforms set to redefine the nation's digital economy.

Instead of a conventional market-entry blitz focused on rapid user acquisition, RWA.LTD is adopting a methodical, "market-validation-first" strategy. The firm intends to systematically map local demand, navigate compliance, and build ecosystem partnerships before committing to a full-scale launch. This cautious approach signals a maturing industry, where sustainable business models are beginning to take precedence over speculative hype, particularly in complex emerging markets.

A New Regulatory Dawn for Digital Assets

RWA.LTD's entry is timed to coincide with a pivotal moment in Vietnam's legislative history. In June 2025, the National Assembly passed the Law on Digital Technology Industry, which takes effect on January 1, 2026. This groundbreaking law formally recognizes digital assets as a form of property under the Civil Code, granting them legal status for ownership, transfer, and inheritance. This move provides a crucial layer of legal certainty that was previously absent.

More pointedly, the government initiated a five-year pilot program in September 2025 (Decree No. 05/2025/NQ-CP) focused exclusively on the tokenization of real-world assets. The decree mandates that crypto assets within the program must be backed by tangible underlying assets, deliberately carving out a space for RWA while excluding purely speculative cryptocurrencies and most decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens. This creates a controlled, yet promising, sandbox for innovation.

However, the framework comes with stringent conditions. All transactions must be conducted in Vietnamese Dong (VND), and only licensed Vietnamese enterprises meeting high capital standards—a minimum of VND 10 trillion (approx. $379 million USD)—are permitted to operate platforms. Critically for foreign firms, ownership in any licensed entity is capped at 49%. This regulation makes local partnerships not just a strategic advantage, but a legal necessity, directly shaping the collaborative entry model that RWA.LTD plans to pursue.

Vietnam: The Ideal Proving Ground

Beyond the new legal clarity, Vietnam presents a uniquely fertile ground for RWA innovation. The country boasts the fastest-growing digital economy in Southeast Asia, valued at $36 billion in 2024 and projected to soar to over $90 billion by 2030. This growth is fueled by a potent combination of factors: a youthful demographic with over 50 million people under 35, soaring internet penetration at 79%, and widespread mobile adoption, with smartphone usage nearing 100%.

This digital fluency has translated into remarkable crypto adoption. With an estimated 17 million citizens owning digital assets, Vietnam ranks fifth globally. The new regulations are seen by experts as a strategic move to harness this existing enthusiasm and channel it from unregulated, speculative markets into a formal, asset-backed economy.

"The legal framework provides the guardrails needed to build public trust," noted one regional fintech analyst. "By focusing on tangible RWAs, Vietnam is attempting to leverage its population's high crypto literacy for productive economic activity, rather than trying to suppress it. It's a pragmatic approach that could unlock significant investment."

This environment makes Vietnam an ideal laboratory. The combination of a digitally native population, a government-sanctioned pathway for RWA, and a clear need for tangible investment vehicles creates a powerful trifecta for testing asset tokenization models.

A Calculated Strategy Over a Market Blitz

In this context, RWA.LTD's decision to prioritize validation over velocity appears particularly astute. The company's press release emphasizes that success will not be measured by short-term trading volume or user counts. Instead, the focus is on building "market presence" and achieving initial validation of its business model for globalizing non-financial assets.

The operational plan centers on in-depth research from its Ho Chi Minh City base. The team will conduct competitor analyses, interview potential partners, and design small-scale pilot initiatives to gather real-world feedback. This incremental process is designed to build a structured, evidence-based understanding of which asset classes—be it real estate, intellectual property, or commodities—and application scenarios are most viable within the Vietnamese context.

This strategy directly addresses the challenges inherent in the new regulations. The high capital requirements and the 49% foreign ownership cap necessitate finding strong, well-capitalized local partners. The Vietnamese blockchain landscape is already vibrant, with numerous development firms like Vietnam Blockchain Corporation (VBC) and SOTATEK JSC, alongside fintech innovators like Coin98, representing a rich pool of potential collaborators. By engaging these local players early and methodically, RWA.LTD aims to build a compliant and culturally attuned foundation before making larger resource commitments.

Beyond Crypto: The Promise of Tangible Tokenization

The initiative also represents a significant contribution to the broader evolution of blockchain technology. For years, the industry has been dominated by discussions of volatile cryptocurrencies. The shift toward non-financial RWAs marks a pivotal transition from speculative instruments to practical applications that can reshape traditional industries.

Tokenizing real-world assets offers the potential to unlock trillions of dollars in illiquid value, making ownership more accessible through fractionalization and creating more efficient, transparent markets. By focusing its pilot program on this area, Vietnam is actively encouraging a future where blockchain technology underpins the ownership and transfer of tangible value, not just digital code.

RWA.LTD's project in Vietnam is a concrete step in this direction. The insights gained from navigating Vietnam's regulatory environment and tailoring products to its market could prove invaluable. As one industry observer commented, "The core challenge of RWA is not the technology; it's finding a sustainable deployment path that works across different legal and cultural systems."

By breaking its market entry into measurable phases, RWA.LTD is not just exploring an opportunity in a single country but is potentially pioneering a replicable methodology for deploying RWAs across emerging economies. The on-the-ground outcomes from Ho Chi Minh City will be closely watched, serving as a critical reference point for the company's future expansion and for the global asset digitization movement as a whole.