Vietnam trials Crypto Assets exchange and Bakkt expansion, etc.

Welcome to the Asia-Pacific Morning Briefing – your indispensable summary of cryptocurrency overnight dynamics that will influence regional markets and global sentiment. Have a cup of green tea, stay tuned. Vietnam will launch an international financial center and launch a pilot project for a cryptocurrency exchange by the end of the year. Bakkt enters the Japanese market with bitcoin.jp rebranding. Chainlink Launches U.S. Stock Data. Nomura Securities obtains derivative brand license in Dubai. Vietnam will pilot a crypto-asset exchange in an international financial center. Vietnam is moving forward with cryptocurrency regulation, with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh announcing that the International Financial Center will be operational by the end of 2025, including a digital asset trading platform. Pham Tan Dung, Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, revealed that Vietnam has established a comprehensive legal foundation for digital assets during the GM Vietnam Congress 2025. The Digital Technology Industry Law, passed in June 2025, officially recognizes that crypto assets are different from virtual assets and will come into effect in January 2026. The Ministry of Finance submitted a resolution on the pilot of cryptoasset trading platforms using blockchain technology as a core infrastructure. Vietnam accounts for 21.2% of global cryptocurrency holdings, with more than 21 million citizens holding more than $100 billion worth of digital assets. The regulatory sandbox, which will operate in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang City, is likely to attract major exchanges. South Korea's Upbit is already exploring access to the Vietnamese market, demonstrating the international community's confidence in the emerging regulatory framework. Bakkt launches Bitcoin Treasury strategy in Japan with a "bitcoin.jp" rebranding. Bakkt Holdings has acquired a 30% stake in Tokyo-listed Marusho Hotta, becoming its largest shareholder in a $235 million deal. The Japanese company will change its name to "bitcoin.jp" after receiving shareholder approval, and Bakkt gets a matching domain name for the website. Phillip Lord, president of Bakkt International, will assume the role of CEO and integrate Bitcoin into the company's treasury strategy. Bakkt co-CEO Akshay Naheta believes that Japan's regulatory environment has created an "ideal platform" for creating a Bitcoin-centric growth business. Previously, Bakkt undertook a $75 million equity round and a $1 billion shelving offering to fund the purchase of Bitcoin, which marked the company's shift from crypto infrastructure to direct Bitcoin treasury operations. Chainlink Launches Real-Time U.S. Stock Data Streaming for DeFi. Chainlink has launched data streams for U.S. stocks and ETFs, bringing institutional-grade pricing to blockchain networks. The service provides real-time data on 37 blockchains for assets such as SPY, NVIDIA, APPLE, and Microsoft. DeFi protocols GMX, Kanino, and others have integrated these data streams. This infrastructure includes time-to-market execution, stale detection, and circuit breaker logic with sub-second latency. This addresses a key gap in the tokenized stock infrastructure, which is still lagging behind despite the fact that the RWA tokenization market has reached $275 billion. Use cases include perpetual futures, on-chain lending using stock collateral, and synthetic ETFs. Johann Eid, Chief Commercial Officer, noted that the launch enables "production-ready tokenized financial products related to U.S. stocks" to be implemented directly on-chain. THE MOVE IS IN LINE WITH GROWING REGULATORY ACCEPTANCE, INCLUDING THE RECENTLY PASSED GENIUS BILL THAT SUPPORTS TOKENIZED FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS. Nomura Securities' Laser Digital Wins Dubai Crypto OTC Derivative Brand Photos. Nomura's crypto subsidiary, Laser Digital, has secured its first regulated OTC crypto options license under the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority's pilot framework. The company became the first VARA-regulated entity to offer direct-to-customer OTC options services in the UAE. Dubai's crypto-friendly regulatory environment continues to attract major players, and Coinbase-owned Deribit plans to operate there as well. Chief Product Officer Johannes Woolard praised VARA for its detailed justification process, but also for its flexible approach to execution. Laser Digital will initially focus on major cryptocurrency tokens with medium-term options through the ISDA protocol, keeping the structure simple before expanding to yield enhancement and lending services. Shigeki Mori and Shota Oba also contributed.