Payments in Vietnam run on QR. Coffee at a street stall, rent to a landlord, a bill split between friends after dinner. All of it moves through a scan linked directly to a bank account. Around 15 million VietQR transfers move through the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam’s (NAPAS) instant payment network every day, and merchant acceptance has reached 85% nationally. Most, if not all, daily transactions in Vietnam involve a QR code and a mobile phone.
Buying crypto was the one thing that lived outside this system. Today, that changes with Banxa’s integration of VietQR for all eligible crypto transactions.
Building for the people
Vietnam ranks 4th in the world for crypto adoption, out of 151 countries tracked by
Chainalysis in 2025. With an estimated 17 to 20 million locals holding crypto, this is somewhere close to a fifth of the population, meaning four out of five have yet to take that first step.
Most early adopters got here through channels available at the time: expensive card transactions, or informal P2P channels that carried real risk alongside the cost. Neither option was built with Vietnamese users in mind. Card-based crypto purchases carry fees as high as 7%, and on a USD $50 purchase, that’s approximately 92,110 VND gone before you own anything (that’s three bowls of pho wasted). Discouraged, some turned to informal P2P channels with no escrow, no licensing, and no recourse if the trade went wrong.
For people in emerging markets, this combination of high cost and unregulated alternatives sits between them and the first, most important step: access.
VietQR on Banxa changes the entry point for local users.
Combined with a 0% fee during the launch period, the introduction of local rails gives Vietnamese users a way to buy crypto using the payment method already linked to their bank account. After the promotion ends on 31 July 2026, the fee settles at 3%. For someone putting aside fifty dollars a month, that difference is what makes a purchase feel worth it.
The size of the opportunity
Few markets Vietnam’s size have compounded this consistently, across adoption, volume, and payment infrastructure, all at the same time.
Vietnam’s onchain volume grew 55% between July 2024 and June 2025, according to
Chainalysis‘s APAC adoption report. The country’s total crypto market value crossed $220 billion in 2025, placing it among the largest crypto markets in Southeast Asia.
QR-based payments also grew 106.7% in volume and nearly 85% in value across Vietnam in 2024, driven partly by a government push toward cashless transactions. VietQR already made up roughly a third of all transactions on NAPAS’s instant payment network that year.
A crypto market growing at pace and a QR payment habit already embedded into daily life. The convergence of both allows Banxa to offer Vietnamese users a way to buy crypto through a familiar payment method backed by a licensed, regulated platform, at a fee that makes participation viable for the majority of the population.
