Nigeria Unifies Crypto Oversight Under New National Framework
Nigeria has moved to consolidate fragmented cryptocurrency oversight under a new national coordination framework, building on the executive order President Tinubu signed creating a CBN-led council for virtual assets regulation. Separately, Tinubu has directed the CBN to crack down specifically on crypto fraud, adding an enforcement dimension to the broader regulatory reset. The twin developments represent the most comprehensive crypto policy action in Africa's largest digital-asset market to date.
Nigeria Crypto: the 30-day clock is where optimism meets reality
The new Virtual Asset Council has one month to produce a Harmonised Implementation Framework — five agencies, including the CBN and SEC, who have spent years pulling in different directions, now expected to agree on how they divide the work.
That 30-day deadline is either a genuine forcing mechanism or a number that will quietly pass. Nigeria's regulatory history has produced plenty of ambitious timelines that dissolved into consultation.
For builders in the space, the coordination structure is only as useful as what comes out of that room. A sandbox and a white paper are promising signals. A missed deadline — or a framework that papers over the CBN-SEC tension without resolving it — would tell you everything you need to know about whether this is a reset or a reshuffle.
2 sources
- Nigeria Wants to End Crypto’s Regulatory Patchwork With a New National Coordination Framework · techbuild.africa · T2
- Tinubu orders CBN to crack down on crypto fraud – here’s what it means · technext24.com · T2