Vietnam has decided to put a stop to the mass imports of cryptocurrency mining equipments according to reports from the HCM City Customs Department in the country.

Viet Nam News reports that Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) confirmed that several domestic businesses and individuals had halted imports as recent as this July; this was after following several months of deliberation.

HCM said that firms and businesses had imported as many as 3,664 application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) devices just within the first six months of this year. Most of the ASIC devices imported are notably Antiminer models, a famous brand of mining equipment by the familiar Bitmain, in China.

Out of about 4000 machines brought into the country, about 3,000 of them were imported by four significant industries involved in mining cryptocurrencies, while the rest were brought in by individuals and specific organizations who imported without including import tax codes.

The Ban On Crypto Mining Equipments

Earlier in June, this year, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) proposed the blanket ban for the first time after authorities began to pay attention to development and evolution of the crypto sector in the country. The increased scrutiny was due to the massive ICO-fraud in Vietnam that swindled almost $700 million from more than 30,000 domestic investors. This caused the Vietnam Prime minister to command intense investigation of the scam and cryptocurrency operations in the country.

This consequently led to Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) to imploring state agencies to assume tight control with imports and any commodity-related to cryptocurrencies. While the proposal was made in June, it took until July for the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), to agree with the MoF’s plan and to back the ban.

Following these developments, digital currencies in Vietnam have now been ruled out and made unlawful as credible payments in the country, as the bank upholds its resolve to remove them from the recognized exceptions of non-cash payments. Current limitations of non-payments cash that are currently approved include payment orders, cheques, and also bank cards.

With the removal of crypto-mining device importation, anyone found guilty of contravening this law might end up paying fines of almost $10,000 and even criminally prosecuted.