Entering the country with the "highest cryptocurrency acceptance" in the world: Vietnam

After three years of violation, at the end of October, taking advantage of Taiwan's entry to completely cancel the quarantine, he seized the opportunity to go abroad immediately. And for the first time, he participated in the overseas blockchain week, and the selected country is not an advanced developed country, but a developing country.

Vietnam has indeed caught a lot of attention from the web3 industry in the past few months. It was first because gamefi Axis infinity became popular, and the team came from Vietnam. In the 2022 report of web3 on-chain data tracking company chainaysis, Vietnam is listed as the “most accepting country for cryptocurrencies” in the world. Binance founder CZ even visited Vietnam personally and praised the Vietnamese market.

These all make people curious about Vietnam's web3 ecology. In fact, I have always wanted to see if this country with a booming economy may challenge China's status as the world's factory. I'm ashamed to say that before I went, my impression of Vietnam was shallow in Taiwanese style. I only knew that the more it goes with the more labor, the pho French bread and the Vietnam War.

But after stepping on it, everything changed.

VBS

The Vietnam Blockchain Week will last for two days, but if you add various side events, it will be about six days. I ran about 9 side events, not many for Singapore Token2049, which just ended a month ago. However, I joked with one of the participants: in Singapore, the team can see the user but not the user, in Vietnam the team may be less but the user can be seen.

Under the crazy social situation these days (almost every day at 9 to 12), I have some observations on the Vietnamese market.

First of all, the Vietnamese market is booming, the industry is developing rapidly, and there are many users and developers. Developers are concentrated in Hanoi and users are in Ho Chi Minh City. The best polytechnic universities in Vietnam are also located in Hanoi, and it is also convenient for graduate employment. Some exchanges also like to set up their offices in Hanoi, because they are closer to the government and have things to deal with.

The second point is that I feel that Vietnam’s ecosystem is more international. Compared with Taiwan, most of them focus on the domestic market. There are many outsourcing companies in Vietnam who take over overseas cases, auditing companies, and KOL agencies. It is very professional and competitive, and the website is also in English.

In terms of tracks, Vietnam mainly focuses on exchanges, Layer 1 infrastructure, and Gamefi. Among them, gamefi even directly engages in the Indian and Philippine markets (in the words of friends, this is a country that is poorer than itself), which is very different from Taiwan. Taiwan's NFT development is very vigorous, with corporate investment and artist community, but I Half of the NFT team was barely seen during Vietnam.

Although Vietnam is listed as being crypto-friendly, in fact the government’s regulatory attitude is unclear, and it is impossible to legally use a bank account to buy coins like Taiwan. Buying with a bank account has regulatory risks, so locals mainly rely on P2P to buy coins. I heard that the two parties traded through the built-in c2c platform of Binance, and I heard that there are more than 20 local exchanges providing services. Of course, it is illegal. From this point of view, Taiwan is more "friendly", and it may depend on when Vietnam will pass the digital asset law.

It is also worth mentioning that Vietnamese web3 practitioners are generally good in English. Almost everyone I talked to explained their projects to me confidently and fluently. What’s more, the network is also smooth and there is no firewall, which is suspicious. Both are communist countries, Vietnam and China are worlds apart. At present, the most popular social platform in Vietnam is Facebook. After a few friends who are chatting with each other, they will add another Facebook after adding the telegram for business affairs.

In the end, of course, it was a small idea of going to overseas BD. In fact, any circle in Taiwan has been around for a long time, and you probably know the same thing. After all, the Taiwan market is so big and the population is so large. However, when I went overseas, I almost didn’t know each other, and each of them was an unfamiliar opportunity. I came back and counted nearly 100 people in five days. This number is far more than when I participated in large and small events in Taiwan. But of course, how many of these people actually end up working together? 10% is not bad, but these opportunities only come from going abroad. One of the big propositions of web3 is to go out of the circle. Going abroad to participate in exhibitions is a direct, rude and effective way, although it is still in the web3 circle in a broad sense.

Women in web3

Share one of the most interesting of the many side events in Hanoi this time.

Usually, all kinds of activities in the currency circle are dominated by men, which can be described as "more difficult for men". For better social activities, the ratio of men to women can be 82, and the technical orientation may only be 9.5:0.5. It is rare to participate in this "women in web3" event in Vietnam. It is organized by the local VC the global Hub and Binance. Since the registration form is marked with women only, everyone may think that it is limited to women. As a result, I walked in and found it inside. 90% of the participants are women, which is unprecedented since joining web3.

In fact, the issue of the low number of women on web3 has been discussed in the West. Matters has also held ama talks on this topic before. This issue is actually very similar to why there are fewer women in the technology industry, and the reasons are similar. However, web3 is expanding beyond simple coding and trading, with more diversity in art, public goods, governance, and community. It happens that the ratio of men and women in these fields is equal, and there are even more opportunities for women.

Duck listened to Leidi and listened to the lecture for a few minutes (as well as eating snacks), and looking at the many guests who were attentively listening to the lecture, I began to wonder: what is the reason why Vietnam's web3 industry may have more women than other countries. Workers (or want to work)?

With this question in mind, I asked some participants in the post-meeting exchange. They told me that the gender in the workplace in Vietnam is relatively equal, and there is not much obstacle for women to participate in the workplace. In addition, it may be the same as other places in the world. Last year's surge Created a lot of job opportunities and gave women the opportunity to participate in the field. Furthermore, there are probably many women who are brave and ambitious, and actively join web3 to create their own opportunities.

Leaving the National Bank and joining the currency circle

And on the last afternoon of the day before I left Vietnam, I specially invited this Vietnamese guy (far right) to chat and then brought up my Singaporean friends. This little brother met at the party on the first night of the conference. After chatting, he was very close. He told me that he used to work in the National Bank, and I was curious to ask if he graduated from the best university in Vietnam and whether he gave up to enter the currency circle. Whether you have a job with an iron job and whether you have quarreled with your family because of this, of course the answer is yes. After working in the National Bank for a few months, he couldn't stand the rigid and conservative atmosphere inside. He knew the currency circle because his friends were doing transactions, and he resolutely jumped out of the official business system.

Drag his Fu to the top floor of this teahouse on the west side of the West Lake in Hanoi to drink tea. West Lake is the largest lake in Hanoi. Autumn is the most suitable season to visit Hanoi. The sky is blue enough and the view is good enough. We all jumped from another industry to web3, from the boring and unchanging office into this risky wilderness, which is probably one of the main reasons why we want to communicate with little brother more.

The last is business

If you are interested in Vietnam's web3 ecosystem, on Tuesday night on 11/1, I invited a few Vietnamese friends from the local area to chat with us on Twitter about what we've seen and heard about this blockchain week, as well as Vietnam's web3 ecosystem. Fields include local public chains in Vietnam, information security, gamefi researchers, Singapore entrepreneurs and Southeast Asian marketing teams. Link to leave a message, the language of the event is English.