Nigeria Signs Executive Order On Crypto Oversight

TLDR

Nigeria has formally brought its fast growing crypto sector under a coordinated national oversight regime through a new executive order signed by President Bola Tinubu.

1. The order creates a Virtual Asset Council chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria to harmonize rules across agencies and target unregistered and high risk operators.
2. It keeps existing regulators in place but clarifies who handles securities, payments, custody and tax, while adding a sandbox for supervised crypto and blockchain innovation.
3. Over the next 30 days, implementation details and a broader virtual assets white paper will determine how strict compliance becomes and how much room remains for startups and exchanges.

Deep Dive

1. What The Executive Order Actually Does

Tinubu signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, under constitutional authority, and it took effect immediately. The order is explicitly framed as a way to protect citizens from fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing while avoiding new bureaucracy or overlapping mandates.

It establishes a Virtual Asset Council as the main policy and coordination body, chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with the Nigeria Revenue Service and Securities and Exchange Commission as vice chairs, and participation from the financial intelligence unit and national security advisers. A Virtual Asset Office inside the CBN will manage day to day information sharing via a shared technology platform.

2. How Oversight And Responsibilities Change

The order does not create a new regulator or strip powers from existing ones. Securities related tokens and offerings stay under Nigerias SEC, while the CBN is explicitly responsible for payments, settlement and custody services tied to non security virtual assets. When jurisdiction is unclear, the Virtual Asset Council becomes the escalation point.

The CBN will also run a regulatory sandbox where exchanges and startups can test virtual asset products and blockchain solutions under supervision, and the Revenue Service is tasked with designing a dedicated tax policy for the sector. For a country with tens of billions of dollars in annual on chain value and tens of millions of crypto users, coordinated rules could reduce fraud but will raise compliance expectations for platforms.

3. What To Watch Next For Users And Businesses

The Virtual Asset Council has 30 days to produce a harmonized implementation framework that will convert this high level order into practical rules and registration steps. In parallel, a broader Virtual Assets White Paper is being finalized to describe Nigerias longer term strategy.

Key signals to monitor include how strict registration thresholds are, how tax treatment is defined, whether the sandbox is used to support innovation or mainly as an extra gate, and how aggressively authorities act against unregistered operators once the framework is published.

Conclusion

Nigerias executive order marks a pivot from fragmented, sometimes hostile treatment of crypto toward structured oversight that blends consumer protection with a supervised path for innovation. The eventual balance between enforcement, taxation and sandbox support will determine whether Nigeria becomes a more attractive, regulated hub for digital assets or a tougher environment where some activity migrates offshore.