According to the announcement, on September 16, the ride-hailing app, Gojek, will officially leave Vietnam, leaving its market share to Grab and several other domestic car companies. As for Grab, a company that was expected to be a bright spot in the Crypto field, it seems to be quite lackluster.
Grab Still Struggling to Get Into Crypto
According to the previous announcement, the ride-hailing sector in Vietnam will lose a strong competitor when after Uber, Gojek leaves Vietnam. It is not clear how Gojek's business will be handled, but currently, Grab still holds the largest market share in Vietnam.
According to a figure released in June 2023, Grab currently has about 33.6 million users. In the same period last year, Grab announced support for Web3 crypto wallets based on the Polygon network. At that time, Grab and Circle announced plans to conduct a Web3 wallet trial in the Grab super app. As a technology company with a large user base, Grab was expected to be a bright spot for traditional companies to enter the Crypto field. However, it seems that things did not go as expected.
After that event, it was not until late March this year that Grab made the first announcements that Grab users in Singapore could use cryptocurrencies to pay for services on this super app. Accordingly, the company has partnered with Triple-A to allow businesses to pay and receive payments in digital currency.
Users in Singapore can top up their GrabPay wallet via Digital Payment Token. Users can pay with five cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), the Singapore dollar-backed stablecoin XSGD , USDC and USDT.
As of now, it appears that Grab’s cryptocurrency payment service is only available in Singapore. While the country has not banned cryptocurrencies, it has taken a cautious approach. It seems that regulatory barriers in each country in general are a major problem in attracting traditional companies to this field.
In Vietnam, cryptocurrency is not recognized as a legal payment method. This means that Grab cannot implement cryptocurrency payment methods in Vietnam, at least until we have clear regulations. Up to now, Vietnam is still in the process of building a complete legal framework for this new field.
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