Five small things I experienced in Vietnam's crypto ecosystem, from street shops to cafes, from merchants refusing credit cards to drivers wearing Binance hats, exploring the real growth status and 'folding' phenomenon of cryptocurrency in Southeast Asia. (Background: Households around Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi became overnight millionaires! An old house of 50 square meters exchanged for 170 billion Vietnamese dong, with the government carrying bags of cash.) (Supplementary background: Vietnam will launch its first national-level digital asset exchange, with South Korea's leading Upbit providing technical support.) Vietnam, a magical country frequently mentioned in numerous Web3 research reports. It boasts one of the youngest demographic structures globally, a very high mobile internet penetration rate, and an almost wild financial vitality. In the (Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index) released by Chainalysis, Vietnam has ranked at the top or near the top for several years. As a long-time observer of the crypto industry, I have always wanted to clarify a question: What kind of chemical reaction occurs when grand concepts like 'crypto payment', 'stablecoins', and 'Mass Adoption' written on PPTs and research reports are actually deployed in the streets and alleys of Vietnam? At the end of 2025, I set foot on this land. During my two weeks in Vietnam, I did not visit large exchanges nor attend industry banquets, but rather, as an ordinary tourist, I took rides, had massages, and ate at street stalls. I recorded five small things from my journey. They may not represent the whole picture, but they are the most authentic slices to glimpse the current state of Web3 in Vietnam. 1: 'No international credit cards, only cash and USDT' In a SPA in Nha Trang, our group of 12 spent 320 USD. At checkout, the merchant bluntly stated: cash payments get a 10% discount, while paying with Visa or Mastercard is at full price. Initially, I was somewhat displeased, as carrying a large amount of Vietnamese dong in cash is inconvenient, and I even questioned whether the owner was trying to 'take advantage of familiar customers'. But the owner's patient explanation cleared up my misunderstanding. In Vietnam, the fees for international credit cards are exorbitant, usually around 3% or even higher. More importantly, using a card means the funds enter the banking system, incurring additional taxes, while cash can avoid these. The owner expressed her difficulties from a very pragmatic small business perspective. In the end, we settled the bill with 300 USD in cash. The owner paid fewer taxes, and we saved dozens of dollars, a win-win situation. Of course, the ones losing out are the credit card organizations and banks as 'middlemen'. The image above: I am settling the bill with cash in USD. This deeply resonated with me: the global credit card payment system has long been monopolized by a few giants, extracting a 3% 'toll fee' from each transaction, while ATM withdrawal fees are as high as 4% or more. For merchants, this is not only a financial cost but also a compliance cost. Since merchants have a natural preference for 'dollars', theoretically, their acceptance of 'digital dollars' (stablecoins) is also to be expected—as long as the payment tool can solve their 'last mile' problem, namely, instantly converting USDT into the Vietnamese dong they need. With this validation logic, I embarked on my subsequent journey of crypto payment experiences in Vietnam. 2: Vietnam's stablecoin payments, the dawn of Mass Adoption When Vietnamese merchants accept US dollar cash, are they ready to accept US dollar stablecoins? During the next leg of my journey, I began to intentionally try to live using only the Bitget Wallet. Grab rides, street stalls buying Pho, SPA massages, seafood banquets... I was surprised to find that as long as the merchant has VietQR (Vietnam's universal payment QR Code), I could basically scan and pay directly with my wallet, with funds instantly converted and credited. VietQR can be seen almost everywhere in Vietnam. The reason I use the word 'basically' is that I discovered a significant bug in crypto payments, which will be mentioned in Chapter 3. The image above: VietQR (bottom right) is ubiquitous on the streets of Vietnam and can be scanned directly for payment with Bitget Wallet. It is no exaggeration to say that in Vietnam, the experience of crypto payments is already infinitely close to that of Alipay. Although I had heard about it before, the shock after experiencing it firsthand was still strong. Crypto wallets like Bitget Wallet are integrated with payment networks like Aeon Pay, transforming cryptocurrency from a 'speculative target' into actual 'purchasing power', directly reaching millions of merchants in Vietnam and surrounding countries. Of course, this smooth experience is built on Vietnam having a highly unified and widespread QR code payment system (VietQR). It is the infrastructure, while crypto payments are the new blood running on it. However, frequent use eventually made me realize that Bitget Wallet's scan-to-pay feature is not infallible. Once, I actually discovered a bug. 3: A failed crypto payment revealed a 'real-world bug' On December 20, 2025, I dined again at the well-known restaurant Moc Seafood in Nha Trang. In the first two visits, I used cash and a credit card, and for the third, I decided to challenge myself to pay with Bitget Wallet. However, this 'challenge' failed. The reason was that the merchant presented a non-standard VietQR aggregated code but rather a printed QR code from an internal bank or an outdated system. My wallet showed a successful deduction after scanning, but after the funds were transferred on-chain, the merchant did not receive any voice announcement or notification of receipt for a long time. The other party also demonstrated to me that after she paid with her mobile phone, she immediately received a notification of the money being credited. The image above: I attempted a crypto payment unsuccessfully, but the clerk successfully completed the scan with a local bank. The merchant helplessly showed me their verification method: scanning with a local financial app, which credited the funds instantly. The loss of a few dollars was the 'tuition fee' I paid for this experience. This small episode made me realize that crypto payments still remain fragile in the 'last mile' of the real world. The lack of compatibility protocols, delays in merchant confirmations, and the cognitive time lag between users' understanding of 'deduction means success' and merchants' understanding that 'only receipt counts' are all pitfalls that must be filled on the road to Mass Adoption. 4: In the minds of ordinary people, cryptocurrencies are still 'gray' The commercialization of technology depends not only on the maturity of the code but also on cultural acceptance. Although Vietnam has a very youthful population, the image of Crypto is not glamorous in the eyes of the general public, especially in northern cities of Vietnam, where this situation is more evident. I spoke with several locals in Hanoi—including currency exchange merchants, motorcycle drivers, and university students— and their first reaction to cryptocurrencies was astonishingly unanimous: money laundering tools, gray industry, gambling. In their view, this is not the 'future of the internet' or 'the future of finance', but rather a means of evading regulation. On the bustling streets of Hanoi and Nha Trang, I could hardly find traces of Bitcoin ATMs or offline OTC exchange shops. This forms a stark visual contrast with places like Hong Kong, Japan, or Georgia, where the neon signs of Crypto Exchanges have already boldly occupied prime spots on commercial streets. On one side is the number one in on-chain data globally, while on the other side, it is difficult to find traces in the physical world. This complete separation between online and offline vividly interprets a 'Vietnamese-style crypto folding'. 5: In the driver's car, I discovered a Binance...

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