Key takeaways:
- President Bola Tinubu has signed an executive order establishing a Virtual Asset Council to coordinate regulation of digital assets across Nigeria’s financial agencies
- The council will be chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the Nigeria Revenue Service and Securities and Exchange Commission as vice-chairs
- The Central Bank is separately proceeding with a regulatory sandbox to let eligible operators test virtual asset products under close supervision
President Bola Tinubu has signed an executive order aimed at harmonizing Nigeria’s regulation of virtual assets, establishing a new council to coordinate oversight across the country’s financial, revenue and capital markets agencies.
The Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, took effect immediately upon signing, issued under Section 5 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution as altered. The order establishes a Virtual Asset Council chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the Nigeria Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission serving as vice-chairs. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Office of the National Security Adviser round out the council’s membership.
The government said the order responds to a regulatory environment that has grown fragmented as virtual assets increasingly blur the traditional boundaries between currencies, money, commodities and securities.
“With relevant agencies operating in silos, overlapping in some areas and leaving gaps in others, the country has been exposed to risks, including money laundering, terrorism financing, cybersecurity and data privacy threats, fraud, and revenue losses,” the government said in a statement announcing the order, adding that unregistered and fraudulent operators have repeatedly exploited those gaps to prey on Nigerians and cost families their savings.
How registration will be divided between regulators
The council will provide policy direction and work with Nigeria’s Attorney-General to develop a harmonized legal and institutional framework for the sector, aligning it with the country’s national security, economic and social objectives. A separate Virtual Asset Office will serve as the council’s operational arm, with its secretariat based at the Central Bank and responsible for day-to-day coordination of information sharing, applications and reporting among the participating agencies.
The office will be supported by an integrated supervisory technology platform designed to give agencies shared visibility while preserving each institution’s ownership and control of its own data.
The order does not create a new regulator or transfer powers between existing agencies, the government said, and each institution retains its full statutory mandate and independence. Registration responsibilities will instead follow the nature of the activity and asset involved: securities-like activities will be registered by the SEC, while payment, settlement, custody and related services involving non-security virtual assets will be registered by the Central Bank.
The council will resolve any cases where responsibility cannot be readily determined, an approach the government said is designed to close the gaps through which unregistered operators have previously escaped oversight.
A sandbox for testing new products
Alongside the coordination framework, the Central Bank is proceeding with a regulatory sandbox for virtual assets, offering a controlled environment where eligible operators can test virtual asset products, services and blockchain-based solutions under close supervision.
The sandbox will allow participating agencies to assess the implications of new products for monetary sovereignty, financial stability, market integrity, consumer protection, financial inclusion and revenue administration before those products reach the wider public.
The government said the approach is intended to ensure that innovations reaching Nigerians have been properly examined and supervised, rather than allowing new virtual asset products to enter the market without adequate regulatory scrutiny.