The Data economy – A new pillar of Vietnam’s growth
When Data is legally recognized as a strategic asset
The concept of the “data economy” is no longer confined to academia. From July 1, 2025, the 2024 Data Law officially took effect, laying the first legal foundation to establish data as a national strategic resource that can be created, shared, interconnected, and monetized.
Previously, Resolution 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo identified blockchain as a strategic technology. Most recently, Decision 21/2026/QĐ-TTg replacing Decision 1131/QĐ-TTg (June 12, 2025) reaffirmed blockchain as a national strategic technology. In parallel, the Digital Technology Industry Law, effective January 1, 2026, completed the legal framework for digital assets and digital technology services.
🔑 Read more: Blockchain affirmed as strategic technology in Vietnam's ecision 21/2026/QĐ-TTg
Together, these four documents form a unified legal framework placing data, blockchain, and digital assets within a single national strategy. Vietnam is entering the data economy with a long-term policy roadmap and clearly defined operational stakeholders.
Scale and projections
According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam’s digital economy reached 16.5% of GDP in 2023, with a target of 20% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 equivalent to an estimated USD 90–200 billion in absolute value.
Within this structure, the data economy is expected to account for an increasingly significant share, alongside AI and semiconductors. IDC estimates that global data volume will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum (WEF) forecasts that around 10% of global GDP, equivalent to USD 16 trillion will be tokenized by 2030.
🔑 Read more: Vietnam's National Blockchain and the foundation of trust infrastructure in the Data economy era
Three core challenges of Vietnam’s Data economy
For data to truly become a valuable asset, three foundational challenges must be addressed simultaneously: data verification, ownership protection, and interoperability. These are universal challenges in developing a data economy, and each country is choosing different infrastructure models.
The trust challenge: Is the Data reliable?
According to PwC, 49% of global CEOs believe lack of trust is the biggest barrier to growth. In Vietnam, data remains fragmented across government agencies, businesses, and citizens. As a result, the value of an e-contract, medical test result, or tax declaration still depends on trust in the issuing party.In many developing economies, verification and reconciliation costs can account for 5–10% of transaction value.
This demonstrates that the data economy cannot operate efficiently without a shared verification layer. Blockchain is considered a solution, acting as a “distributed notarization layer” for digital transactions, where once recorded, data cannot be altered by any single party.
The interoperability challenge: Can Data be connected?
Vietnamese exporters must comply with multiple international data and traceability standards such as the EU Digital Product Passport (DPP), U.S. FSMA 204, EUDR, eIDAS 2.0, GS1, and ISO 22005. These standards require digitally signed data, independently verifiable records, and cross-border interoperability.
As the Vietnam–Indonesia digital economy corridor reached USD 17.2 billion in 2025 and is projected to exceed USD 500 billion by 2030, the need for a shared trusted infrastructure layer is increasingly urgent. In April 2026, NDAChain and GOE Alliance executed Southeast Asia’s first cross-border on-chain transaction, aiming to build compliant cross-border verification and on-chain transaction infrastructure.
🔑 Read more: NDAChain and GOE Alliance realize the first Cross-Border on-chain transaction in Southeast Asia
The sovereignty challenge: Does Vietnam control its Data?
Unlike traditional goods, data carries economic and political identity. National citizen, healthcare, and financial data cannot reside entirely on public blockchains operated outside national jurisdiction.
This is why the EU built EBSI, China built BSN, and Vietnam has chosen to develop its own national blockchain platform rather than relying on Ethereum or international chains.
🔑 Read more: The National Blockchain platform: A new pillar in Vietnam’s Data and digital transformation strategy
NDAChain – A trust infrastructure layer for the Data economy
Position in the national Data architecture
NDAChain is positioned as Vietnam’s national blockchain platform based on a permissioned blockchain model. The network is developing with 49 public–private validator nodes, including the National Data Association, Zalo, MISA, Sovico, PILA, and VNVC, forming a distributed verification infrastructure for Vietnam’s data economy. NDAChain currently achieves approximately 1,200 transactions per second and, by early 2026, had recorded more than 5 million verified transactions on the network.
🔑 Read more: The National Blockchain platform: A new pillar in Vietnam’s Data and digital transformation strategy
NDAChain does not replace enterprise databases or government information systems. Instead, it functions as a trusted data infrastructure layer, where critical events are recorded as cryptographic hashes and digitally signed by legally responsible entities.
Under Decision 3090/QĐ-BKHCN (October 8, 2025) on the National Digital Architecture Framework, blockchain is designated as shared infrastructure across central and local levels—indicating that the national blockchain is not a standalone application, but a foundational layer serving multiple digital systems and services.
Four technical mechanisms unlocking Data value
NDAChain enables the data economy through four core technical mechanisms:
Immutability and traceability
Each data transaction is recorded through cryptographically linked blocks, ensuring that data cannot be modified without leaving a verifiable trace.Decentralized Identity (DID) based on International Standards
NDAChain deploys did:nda—the first Vietnamese DID method registered on the global W3C DID Registry—allowing individuals, businesses, and organizations to own self-sovereign digital identities with international interoperability.Verifiable Credentials (VCs)
Degrees, licenses, test results, and certificates of origin can be digitally signed and independently verified within seconds, significantly reducing reconciliation and verification costs.Sensitive Data protection mechanism
NDAChain does not store personal data on-chain; only cryptographic hashes are recorded, ensuring compliance with the 2025 Personal Data Protection Law and compatibility with international digital identity infrastructures such as the EU’s EBSI.
🔑 Read more: What is EBSI? The role of EBSI in Europe’s Digital infrastructure
Three Key Applications of the Data Economy in Vietnam
Data-Based credit for SMEs
According to VCCI, approximately 70% of SMEs struggle to access credit due to a lack of traditional collateral. The 2024 Data Law opens a new direction: operational business data, revenue, cash flow, orders, supply chains can become verifiable digital assets. By digitally signing and anchoring transaction data hashes on NDAChain, banks can verify data integrity without accessing raw data, forming the foundation for data-driven credit scoring, an approach already implemented in Singapore, South Korea, and China.
Traceability for Vietnamese export products
The EU will implement the Digital Product Passport from 2026 for textiles, batteries, and electronics, expanding to agricultural products. The U.S. will implement FSMA 204 from 2028 for food products. With USD 53.01 billion in agricultural, forestry, and fishery exports in 2023, Vietnam must develop traceability systems aligned with international standards. On NDAChain, NDATrace serves as a “digital passport for Vietnamese goods,” assigning digital identities to each shipment and recording the entire production–distribution lifecycle as immutable entries. According to WEF and IBM, blockchain-based traceability can reduce supply chain costs by 20–40% and shorten trace-back time from 6–7 days to just seconds.
🔑 Read more: Digital product passport – A gateway for Vietnamese goods
Self-Sovereign identity for citizens and enterprises
Vietnamese users currently share personal data across dozens of platforms without effective control after submission.
NDAKey, a Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) application built on NDAChain, addresses this issue.
Instead of sharing full personal data sets, users can present Verifiable Credentials (VCs) to prove specific attributes such as “over 18 years old” or “valid driver’s license holder” without revealing underlying data.
This model enhances user data control while reducing personal data breach risks. NDAKey’s approach is compatible with the EU’s eIDAS 2.0 framework and aligned with Vietnam’s 2025 Personal Data Protection Law.
🔑 Read more: NDAKey and the development direction for a self-sovereign identity infrastructure in Vietnam
Roadmap 2026–2030: From infrastructure to National ecosystem
The 2026–2027 phase focuses on completing the national blockchain infrastructure, expanding validator nodes, and deeply integrating with national databases.
From 2027–2028, focus shifts to practical applications in finance–banking, healthcare, export agriculture, education, and real estate, marking the stage where the data economy begins generating clear commercial value.
🔑 Read more: NDAChain – The National Blockchain platform: The “Backbone” of Vietnam’s digital Data architecture
From 2028–2030, NDAChain aims to interconnect with ASEAN and global blockchain infrastructures, supporting the data economy as a key contributor toward the goal of digital economy accounting for approximately 30% of Vietnam’s GDP by 2030.
The Data Economy Requires a Trust Infrastructure Built and Controlled by Vietnamese
The data economy is not a technology slogan, it is becoming Vietnam’s new growth structure in the latter half of the 2020s. With the legal framework in place, infrastructure prepared, and enterprises accelerating digitalization, the decisive component is a trusted intermediary layer ensuring data integrity, rapid verification, international interoperability, and operation under Vietnamese sovereignty.
NDAChain is positioned to fulfill exactly that role: a national blockchain platform, built and operated by Vietnamese, creating digital trust for Vietnam’s data economy.
👉 Contact NDAChain to explore how national blockchain infrastructure can integrate with your enterprise data systems: https://ndachain.vn/en
