According to the State Bank of Vietnam and the Ministry of Justice, the usage of electricity for the purposes of automatic data processing serves to decode cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum and some other similar currencies not being in subject to the Decree No. 101/2012/NĐ-CP dated on November 22, 2012 of the Government on non-cash payment and Decree No. 80/2016/NĐ-CP dated on July 1, 2016 of the Government amending and supplementing some articles of Decree No. 101/2012/NĐ-CP.
However, the above activities are also not banned in electricity activities and the usage of electricity stipulated in Article 7 of the Electricity Law of 2004, amended and supplemented in 2012.
On the basis of the opinions of the State Bank and the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a document No. 1402/BCT-ĐTĐL guiding the implementation of the electricity selling price. Accordingly, electricity used for decoding and exploiting cryptocurrency activities is subject to the retail price of electricity for business purposes. The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not recognize cryptocurrency as currency or means of payment.
