Nigeria signs sweeping virtual asset coordination order

TLDR

Nigeria has adopted an executive order that creates a coordinated nationwide framework for regulating virtual assets without adding a new regulator.

1. The order sets up a Virtual Asset Council and Office to harmonize oversight among the Central Bank, securities regulator, tax authority, and intelligence units.
2. Responsibilities are divided: securities?type tokens remain under the SEC, while payments, custody, and non?security crypto fall under the Central Bank, with a sandbox and tax policy coming.
3. Over the next 30 days, a detailed implementation framework and a broader white paper will determine how strictly exchanges, wallets, and P2P activity are treated in practice.

Deep Dive

1. What The Order Actually Does

President Bola Tinubu signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, which takes effect immediately and is issued under Section 5 of Nigerias 1999 Constitution, according to a detailed policy summary.

It creates a Virtual Asset Council chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with the Nigeria Revenue Service and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as vice chairs, plus the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Office of the National Security Adviser as members. The order explicitly does not create a new regulator or strip powers, but formalizes how existing agencies coordinate.

A Virtual Asset Office housed at the CBN becomes the operational hub, using shared supervisory technology to handle applications, reporting, and information sharing between agencies.

2. Impact On Users And Businesses

Under the order, the SEC continues to regulate virtual assets that qualify as securities, while the CBN supervises payment, settlement, custody, and other services involving non?security virtual assets, as confirmed in both the local policy note and a separate Bitcoin.com report.

The CBN is also setting up a regulatory sandbox where crypto and fintech firms can test products under supervision, and the Nigeria Revenue Service will publish a sector?specific tax policy aiming at responsible innovation rather than an outright clampdown. For users, this points toward more formal registration, clearer rules around custody and payments, and likely stronger checks around anti?fraud and anti?money?laundering.

Nigeria already processed over 92.1 billion dollars of on?chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, with about 22 million people using or holding crypto, so stricter but clearer rules affect a very large local user base.

3. What To Watch Next

The Virtual Asset Council must produce a Harmonised Implementation Framework within 30 days, which will spell out licensing rules, reporting duties, and how existing informal P2P flows are treated.

A longer term Virtual Assets White Paper is also in advanced stages and will outline Nigerias strategic approach to digital assets, including innovation priorities and enforcement posture. How the sandbox is used, how aggressive tax policy becomes, and whether coordination really reduces siloed oversight will determine whether Nigeria becomes a more attractive, regulated crypto hub or a tougher jurisdiction.

Conclusion

Nigerias coordination order moves the country from fragmented, overlapping crypto oversight to a single, structured policy table without adding bureaucracy. For crypto users and businesses, the near term implication is more formal regulation and supervisory scrutiny, but also clearer paths to operating legally in one of the worlds largest crypto adoption markets.