Nigeria’s cryptocurrency market is moving towards a more formal regulatory environment, but experts say clearer rules could bring institutional capital while raising compliance costs for smaller digital -asset businesses.
ITWeb Africa has previously reported on their growing role across Africa and the implications for traditional financial systems.
For this story, ITWeb Africa spoke with digital-asset, fintech, banking, investment and legal experts on how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) evolving framework could reshape stablecoins, tokenisation, institutional participation and consumer protection.
Alex Witt, general partner at Verda Ventures, said the biggest obstacle to seamless cross-border stablecoin payments is no longer moving money, but converting it at either end.
“Most African corridors lack deep direct currency markets,” Witt said, noting that payments can still move through the United States dollar before reaching another African currency.
He said Africa has plenty of on- and off-ramp providers, but lacks sufficient treasury, foreign exchange and payment-orchestration infrastructure, while fragmented licensing and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements further complicate cross-border operations.
Witt said Nigeria is already positioned as a regional hub, but needs stronger infrastructure, including licence passporting, shared settlement rails and direct liquidity between the naira, Ghanaian cedi and West African CFA franc.
Jeremy Savory, founder of Millionaire Migrant and CEO of Savory & Partners, said wealthy Nigerian clients already have exposure to crypto, but clearer regulation could make digital assets more acceptable to banks and family offices.
“Capital that's been moving informally can finally come out of the shadows into something a bank or a family office is willing to touch,” Savory said.
However, he expects compliance costs to pressure smaller platforms and drive consolidation.
Digital-assets lawyer Safi Ghauri, managing partner at Esquare Legal, said clear rules could help crypto move from a regulatory grey area into mainstream digital finance.
He said institutional investors and traditional financial institutions need regulatory certainty before entering the market at scale.
But Ghauri warned that licensing fees, audits and capital requirements could prove difficult for early-stage startups, forcing some smaller businesses to merge or exit.
Nigeria’s regulator is already moving deeper into supervised digital-asset activity. In August 2026, the SEC admitted three additional Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, providing conditional approval while firms operate under regulatory oversight.
The challenge is not simply regulation, but whether it can protect consumers and provide institutional confidence without shutting out smaller innovators that helped build Nigeria’s digital-asset market.
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