Vietnamese Exchange VBTC Relaunches With New Partners

Bitcoin Vietnam, a Vietnamese startup founded in 2013, announced two days ago the re-opening on VBTC. The exchange previously operated during a few months starting from July 2014 but closed its doors temporarily.

“VBTC will allow us to handle Bitcoin remittance services towards Vietnam in a very fast and price­competitive way. In an ideal setup it will take you less than one hour to send funds to your beloved ones in Vietnam ­ from sending the Bitcoins to us until the recipient in Vietnam holds the cash in his hands. This is already possible today.”

Dominik Weil, Co-Founder of Bitcoin Vietnam.

The Vietnamese market is especially ripe when it comes to remittances — they’re ranked as one of the top-ten countries in the world in remittance value — with Bitcoin Vietnam’s base city of Ho Chi Minh receiving over $1.4 billion just during the first quarter of 2015.

Nguyen Tran Bao Phuong, CEO of Bitcoin Vietnam, has a very positive outlook regarding the future of crypto currencies in the country. With over 70% of Vietnam’s population being unbanked, he’s hoping the country’s youth will leap right over traditional banking solutions and adopt crypto currencies. To this effect, VBTC boasts over 9,200 locations all around the country where people can deposit or withdraw cash from their accounts.

VBTC was re-launched with the help of BitGo and BlinkTrade. Rodrigo Souza, Co-Founder of BlinkTrade, spoke about his company’s experience when it comes to remittances and dealing with complicated banking regulations (they operate one of two Bitcoin exchanges available in Venezuela):

“BlinkTrade is building a network of bitcoin exchanges across the globe, with presence currently in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Pakistan and now Vietnam. We are connecting Remittance companies in the USA with exchanges in the Blinktrade Bitcoin Exchanges network; aiming to reduce costs of remittances while increase the speed of settlement.”

The re-built exchange supports multi-signature wallets and also provides traditional insurance to its users.