Surviving 30 Days in Vietnam Using USDT

Investigator: Joe Zhou, Foresight News

"30 days, 5 cities, 106 QR code scans." A stablecoin experiment in Vietnam has just concluded.

This experiment aimed to verify a proposition mentioned countless times: Can stablecoins truly cross the "last mile" of payments, replace national-level products like Alipay, and evolve into a genuine mainstream global payment method?

Without investigation, there is no right to speak. Regarding whether stablecoins can truly be implemented in people's livelihoods and replace the old fiat currency system, more real-world cases are needed to prove or disprove it.

To this end, the author delved into Vietnamese society in December 2025 for a thirty-day field investigation. During this research, the author deliberately abandoned traditional fiat tools like cash and credit cards on the payment side, relying entirely on stablecoins like USDT for daily consumption (Note: the merchant receiving end still settled in Vietnamese Dong). The research footprint spanned five cities including Hanoi, Nha Trang, Da Lat, and Ho Chi Minh City.

The facts and conclusions of the investigation are detailed below.

106 Real-World Tests: Stablecoins Already Cover 97.17% of Daily Consumption in Vietnam

After an extreme stress test spanning 30 days, 5 cities, and 106 real consumption scenarios, the investigation conclusion becomes clear—in Vietnam, stablecoins (USDT, USDC, etc.) have moved beyond crypto exchanges and the on-chain world, becoming a payment method covering 97.17% of daily life scenarios.

To recreate the most authentic payment environment, the author set an almost harsh "extreme stress test" standard: refuse to select scenarios, refuse to avoid difficulties.

Whether facing QR codes of different standards, being in mountainous areas with weak network signals, during urgent moments with low phone battery, dealing with elderly people or young children, or even typical cross-border social payment challenges like "splitting the bill" with Vietnamese friends... the author recorded all payment needs encountered in daily life and included all extreme variables in the statistical sample.

Final result: Out of 106 challenges, relying solely on crypto wallet QR code scanning for payment, 95 were successful, achieving a success rate of 89.6%.

And this is limited to the single function of "stablecoin QR code payment." If U Card (stablecoin credit card) payments are added, the number of successful stablecoin payments reaches 103, with a success rate of 97.17%.

This means that with just a mobile phone (equipped with a Web3 wallet), people can almost navigate Vietnam unimpeded.

Figure: Statistics from Real-World Stablecoin Payment Tests in Vietnam

The 106 samples collected in this research span online and offline, covering chain giants and roadside vendors, encompassing diverse groups from silver-haired seniors to Generation Z... striving to achieve a panoramic scan of Vietnam's consumer ecosystem.

The scenarios covered in this research include online platforms like Trip.com (the overseas version of Ctrip) and Vexere (the Vietnamese version of 12306); offline scenarios delve into stations, scenic spots, Grab rides, and roadside stalls. Furthermore, in high-frequency life scenarios such as dining, entertainment, and retail (e.g., convenience stores), stablecoin QR code payments have almost all achieved smooth passage.

The underlying logic of this phenomenon lies in the "leapfrog development" of Vietnam's financial system: propelled by rapid economic growth, the entire country has completed a historic transformation at an extremely fast pace—skipping the lengthy credit card era entirely and leaping directly into the maturity stage of mobile payments.

Figure: A Vietnamese restaurant server displaying a VietQR code

The author discovered that Vietnam has an extremely high mobile payment penetration rate. VietQR (Vietnam's national universal QR code) is almost standard for every citizen. Whether in malls or roadside stalls, for the elderly or preschool children, a mobile phone and a QR code constitute the most mainstream financial terminal.

Leveraging VietQR, this national-level infrastructure, crypto wallets like Bitget Wallet, by integrating underlying payment protocols like Aeon, have broken down the barrier between 'on-chain' and 'off-chain': users pay with stablecoins, merchants receive Vietnamese Dong, and both parties complete the value exchange within their respective familiar comfort zones.

Vietnam's Second Financial System: The Three Breakthroughs of Stablecoins

"Surprisingly, this explosive growth in the payment ecosystem is only a recent development within the last year. In 2024, Vietnam's stablecoin QR code and U Card payment market was almost a barren land," an entrepreneur deeply involved in crypto payments told the author.

Interviews with multiple local Vietnamese individuals cross-verified this timeline: the real inflection point appeared in the second half of 2025. Before that, stablecoins were more of a trading instrument within exchanges; after that, they began to permeate the capillaries of cities through specific individuals.

This change was first reflected in Jessica, a Chinese entrepreneur settled in Ho Chi Minh City. She candidly told the author that her primary transaction methods in Vietnam have now completely switched to U Card and stablecoin QR code payments. This payment combination is "very convenient, covering almost the vast majority of daily life scenarios."

Jing, a restaurant owner in Nha Trang, confirmed this trend from a merchant's perspective. He revealed to the author that starting in November 2025, diners attempting to use stablecoin QR code payments began to appear in his restaurant. "Quite a few have come one after another; you're definitely not the first."

As the conversation warmed up, Jing familiarly gave the author directions: "If you want to exchange your stablecoins for Vietnamese Dong cash, there's a Chinese convenience store about 1 kilometer away, turn left when you go out, they can handle it." In Vietnam, convenience stores are often the most discreet exchanges.

Figure: An ordinary supermarket in Vietnam

As the most grassroots "exchange nodes" in the ecosystem, Scarlett and Lin, who run a small offline currency exchange shop, showed the author the surprising maturity and openness of exchange channels in some Vietnamese cities. "Want to exchange stablecoins for Vietnamese Dong? Just come to our shop anytime." They quoted the author a rate skillfully, "Exchange rate 26,000, transfer via the TRON chain, a flat fee of 2 USDT per transaction."

Of course, this "openness" is not a consensus across all of Vietnam. During the investigation, the author discovered significant differences in commercial culture between northern and southern Vietnam: practices taken for granted in southern cities like Ho Chi Minh City become taboos in the capital, Hanoi. When the author inquired about the same issue with local exchange dealers in Hanoi, they appeared evasive and directly refused any discussion regarding stablecoin exchange.

After in-depth conversations with locals from different social strata in Hanoi (from students to small shop owners), the author observed a noticeable regional temperature difference: compared to the openness of the south, residents in northern Vietnam generally hold a cautious, even instinctively wary attitude towards stablecoins.

"However, regardless, a new payment paradigm has been established."

Stablecoins have already achieved comprehensive penetration of Vietnam's payment terminals. Whether through cash, stablecoin credit cards, or QR code payments, these three pillars advancing side by side mark that Vietnam has, in fact, established the entire chain for foreigners to use stablecoins for local consumption.

A financial closed-loop parallel to the fiat currency system has begun to operate autonomously.

The Singularity Moment: A Two-Way "Taming" Between People and Technology

The Vietnamese stablecoin market is currently at a critical threshold state.

Importing the research data into Manus for multi-dimensional modeling analysis, we found that payment success rate is not a single technical indicator but is significantly influenced by two latent variables: "user adaptability" and "scale of use."

And both data and actual cases are revealing this point.

From a macro data perspective: Manus's analysis divides the 30-day research data into three distinct phases: from the first week's "exploration period" (low consumption, high failure rate), transitioning to the second week's "adaptation period," and finally entering the "maturity period" in the third week—the author's payment success rate also drew a beautiful upward curve, climbing from less than 80% in the initial stage to over 95% in the final two weeks.

This leap in data has a concrete explanation at the micro level. Taking the "QR code displays Invalid" scenario that occurred 9 times during the research as an example: in the early stages of the experiment, the author often passively judged it as a "failure"; but as familiarity with the tools and scenarios grew, the author later learned to intervene proactively—asking the staff to refresh the screen or change the QR code, thereby successfully salvaging the payment. This "human correction" means that as "operational proficiency" increases, users have developed the subjective initiative to judge situations and troubleshoot, and this initiative significantly boosts the final payment success rate.

Figure: A Grab driver displaying VietQR

This trend indicates that a dynamic "interaction and taming" is occurring between consumers and payment tools. People are adapting to the tools, and the tools are becoming more user-friendly through people's use.

"Users are adapting to the tools, and merchants are also actively adapting to users."

The author observed that local Vietnamese merchants, individuals consciously integrating internationally, and even Grab drivers are transitioning from 'bystanders' to 'active adapters.'

Whether actively switching to standard VietQR to match Web3 wallets or skillfully using stablecoins to accommodate international partners, these behaviors point to the same underlying logic: embracing technology for business. This pragmatic commercial culture rooted in Vietnamese society is the key driving force enabling stablecoins to cross technical barriers and achieve rapid adoption.

The Long 20 Seconds: The "Last Mile" of Stablecoin Payments

A 97.17% payment success rate is sufficient to prove that stablecoins possess the technical foundation for Mass Adoption; but those 11 glaring failures act like an alarm bell, constantly reminding us: the distance to being truly "globally usable," this seemingly short "last mile," is actually still a chasm difficult to cross.

This research left behind cold data: 13 convenience store purchases all successful; 23 out of 25 Grab rides successful; 35 out of 41 restaurant payments successful; 5 flights/hotels/bus tickets all successful. Behind these numbers, the author deconstructed those 11 failures into three major mountains lying across the path to widespread adoption.

The first mountain is the "instant collapse of trust." This was the most startling moment of the entire investigation—"The money was deducted, but the other party didn't receive it." This actually happened three times: December 20, 2025, MOC SEAFOOD restaurant, loss of 3.75 USDT; December 22, Nha Trang Old Chengdu Sichuan Restaurant, loss of 6.75 USDT; January 5, 2026, Liên Hoa Bakery, loss of 2.26 USDT.

For a tech professional accustomed to tolerating bugs, this might just be "attrition"; but for an ordinary user, it's a disaster. You cannot prove your innocence to the merchant by showing a bank transfer record because the on-chain hash value is just gibberish to the server. Standing at the checkout counter, facing the merchant's suspicious gaze, the trust built by technology resets to zero at this moment. This awkwardness is enough to deter any non-geek user.

The second mountain is "social awkwardness," that is, the "long 20 seconds." Every on-chain transaction requires confirmation. Fast takes 20 seconds, slow takes 30 seconds. This time might be a huge technological advancement, but in a busy convenience store checkout line, these 30 seconds feel like an eternity. The anxious gaze of the people queuing behind makes these tens of seconds of waiting feel like sitting on pins and needles. Compared to Alipay's "millisecond-level" response, this 20-second "time difference" constitutes a huge psychological barrier. If this 20 seconds of social pressure is not resolved, Web3 payments will forever remain a toy for geeks and cannot become part of ordinary people's daily lives.

Figure: A MUJI staff member in Ho Chi Minh City displaying a QR code

The third mountain is the "walled gardens of giants" and the "threshold for micro-payments." Even though VietQR is a national standard, Muji, Haidilao, and some large网红 stores still attempt to build their own "walled gardens." They tend to use their own aggregated codes, causing the author's scans to display "Invalid" multiple times. Although this can usually be covered by a Visa card, it is undoubtedly a series of cold rejections. Furthermore, "micro-payments" are also an invisible pain point. The current payment system has a mandatory minimum charge of around 17,000 Vietnamese Dong (approximately 5 RMB). When you just want to buy a bottle of water or take a very short Grab ride, the system will still deduct Vietnamese Dong worth about 5 RMB. For high-frequency livelihood scenarios, this is an economic loophole that must be fixed.

These 11 failures reveal that the distance from 97% to 100% is not a simple linear increase but a qualitative leap. Only when users no longer worry about money disappearing, no longer feel ashamed because of waiting, and no longer get "reverse rounding" because the amount is too small, will the stablecoin payment revolution truly cross the chasm named the "last mile."

History's Echo: From China to Vietnam

History repeatedly proves: a new model of economic growth inevitably calls for a new financial system to support it.

Twenty years ago, China, through Alipay and WeChat Pay, bypassed the credit card system, using mobile payments to support the take-off of internet e-commerce and the digital economy; today, Vietnam is constructing a unique "dual-track finance"—popularizing mobile payments domestically while embracing stablecoins externally, attempting to complete the same perilous leap.

So it was for China, and so it is for Vietnam.

The difference is, this time, Vietnam has defaulted to a more decentralized, globally liquid path. This is not accidental but continues the consistent "pragmatic" undertone of this land.

Although the "long 20 seconds" still exist, although the mechanisms of trust still need repair, the wheels cannot be turned back. On this land that firmly believes in pragmatism, a major financial artery parallel to traditional banks, carrying the aspirations of countless individuals, is roaring into the future accompanied by the roar of the times.