VECITA said organisations and individuals should not do transactions relating to virtual currencies. — Illustrative image/ Photo cafef.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The industry and trade ministry's E-commerce and Information Technology Agency (VECITA) has warned consumers and investors to be cautious while purchasing virtual currencies on e-commerce websites.

Specifically, some websites, forums and social networks provide information on virtual currencies such as Swisscoin, Bitcoin, Onecoin and Gem coin, besides IL coin with offers of huge profits.

However, the State Bank of Viet Nam said on February 27, 2014 that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies were not legal currency and payment tools in Viet Nam. The ownership, purchase and use of virtual currencies are risky and not protected by law.

In addition, VECITA said organisations and individuals should not do transactions relating to virtual currencies.

Over the last two years, several virtual currencies such as Bitcoins have been banned for transactions in some countries such as China, Russia and Thailand. Investors in Japan and Hong Kong have been attacked by hackers, causing losses to them.

In Viet Nam, policy agencies received reports about fraud in online transactions, when investors who transferred cash to the accounts of sellers did not receive virtual currencies in return. — VNS