Nigeria Tells Dollar Stablecoin Issuers: Get Local, Post 15B Naira

Nigeria just raised the fence around its crypto market. The Central Bank of Nigeria dropped a rulebook called “Regulations for the Operations of Non-Security Virtual Assets in Nigeria,” creating licensing and oversight for what it calls Regulated Tokens — and dollar-pegged stablecoin issuers are square in its sights. Anyone selling those coins to Nigerians now needs a local footprint, plus capital and reserves to back it up.

The price of admission isn't small. According to Cryptopolitan, foreign stablecoin issuers must hold 15 billion naira in capital — roughly $10.5 million. The rules also tighten the screws on peer-to-peer crypto trading. The whole framework rides on an executive order President Bola Tinubu signed on July 17, 2026, which stood up a Virtual Asset Council chaired by the CBN, with the Nigeria Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission serving as vice chairs.

The SEC isn't sitting it out. On August 20, 2026, it published its own draft for stablecoin issuers: foreign-currency-backed coins would need reserves of at least 120%, naira- and commodity-backed tokens 100%, and crypto-backed coins would start at 150%. Digital asset firms would need somewhere between 200 million naira (about $140,600) and 2 billion naira (about $1.4 million) in capital, with exchanges and custodians hit hardest — a bar the SEC already doubled in a January notice. Foreign companies would also have to appoint a representative inside Nigeria. Critics say the setup rewards big, established players and squeezes small local startups.

Nigeria's homegrown answer, the naira-backed cNGN, is still chasing users. It kicked off a pilot on February 27, 2024, pitched as an alternative to the eNaira — the government digital currency that never caught on. Crypto commentator Rume Ophi tied that flop to a public belief that the eNaira was a government weapon aimed at the crypto industry.

The dollar habit runs deep here, and regulators know it. During the 2024 crackdown on Binance, traders piled into Tether (USDT) as the naira slid. CBN Governor Yemi Cardoso said $26 billion moved through Binance in 2023 from sources the bank couldn't identify — the standoff that followed blocked Nigerian access to the exchange and landed Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan in detention. Even with that fight raging, Nigeria pulled in more than $92.1 billion in crypto between July 2024 and June 2025.

Next up: the CBN reportedly opened a stablecoin sandbox on August 12 this year. The bank is expected to publish what it learned and start handing licenses to the companies that cleared the bar.