The Director-General of Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr. Emomotimi Agama, says over $50 billion in cryptocurrency transactions flowed through the country between July 2023 and June 2024. The figure—driven largely by peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms and global exchanges—has become the clearest signal of Abuja’s shift from hostility to heavy regulation of digital assets. Agama frames the push as a matter of national economic security, investor protection, and financial inclusion: crypto is no longer a niche; it is now a material part of Nigeria’s financial landscape.
This policy turn follows landmark legislation that classifies digital assets as “securities,” formally placing them under the SEC’s remit and empowering Agama’s office to craft a comprehensive rulebook. The $50 billion headline is also corroborated by third-party analysis: an IMF report citing Chainalysis estimates $59 billion over the same period and ranks Nigeria among the world’s top countries for grassroots crypto adoption.
The number exposes a tale of two markets. On one side are legacy financial institutions struggling to retain the trust and engagement of a young, tech-native population. On the other is a crypto economy that has become a practical tool in the face of double-digit inflation, capital controls, and the need for low-friction cross-border payments. For many Nigerians, crypto now underpins wealth preservation, remittances, and economic agency. Yet most of this activity has happened in a regulatory “grey zone,” largely outside the government’s supervisory and tax net—fueling concerns at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) about pressure on the naira.
Agama, who took office in April 2024, inherited a contradictory policy backdrop. The CBN’s 2021 directive barring banks from servicing crypto firms pushed trading underground and supercharged P2P volumes. From the outset, Agama signaled a harder, domestication-first approach rather than a ban that had already failed. In May 2024, he met industry stakeholders, flagged plans to bar naira use on P2P platforms he deemed prone to manipulation, and urged naming and shaming of bad actors.
His core instrument is the 2025 Investment and Securities Act framework, which empowers the SEC to license and supervise all Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), enforce AML/CFT rules, regulate public offerings and marketing of digital assets, and impose stiff penalties for violations. Building on that authority, mid-2025 “New Rules on Digital Assets Issuance” ushered in aggressive enforcement and higher operating bars:
- High entry thresholds for operators: Registration fees for Digital Asset Offering Platforms rose from ₦30 million to ₦50 million; processing fees jumped from ₦300,000 to ₦5 million. Governance requirements now include a minimum five-member board with prior SEC approval. New categories such as Digital Asset Intermediaries broaden the perimeter.
- Crackdown on “finfluencers”: VASPs must obtain SEC “no-objection” before engaging influencers or marketers—paid or unpaid. Paid promotions must be clearly disclosed, and both firms and promoters can be held liable for misleading content.
- Tighter leash on foreign exchanges: A recognition pathway exists only for firms from IOSCO-member jurisdictions that accept SEC oversight—challenging fly-by-night models and nudging global platforms to enter formally or risk blockage.
For a revenue-strained government, formalizing even a slice of $50 billion could yield meaningful tax receipts. Yet the same flows complicate monetary policy and the naira’s stability, sharpening the policy dilemma. Implementation is another hurdle: fewer than half of the SEC’s 2015–2025 Capital Market Master Plan initiatives were completed, underscoring capacity constraints that could hamper oversight of a borderless, 24/7 market.
Agama has drawn a clear line. By quantifying Nigeria’s crypto economy, he validates its scale while declaring it “too big to fail” and “too big to be free.” The next year will test whether a determined regulator—with new laws, strict licensing, and marketing controls—can domesticate a decentralized market that grew precisely because traditional systems could not keep up.
