Nigeria's central bank has introduced new rules that require issuers of dollar-linked stablecoins to establish a local presence and pass capital and reserve tests. Foreign companies that market their tokens to Nigerians will have to comply with the framework even if they operate no office in the country. Meanwhile, Nigeria's own naira coin, cNGN, is still working to win users.

What do Nigeria's new stablecoin rules require?

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) published a document titled "Regulations for the Operations of Non-Security Virtual Assets in Nigeria". It establishes licensing and oversight for what the bank terms Regulated Tokens.

The rules were issued under an executive order signed by President Bola Tinubu on July 17, 2026. They apply to coins backed by the naira as well as coins backed by foreign currencies such as the dollar. Deposit Money Tokens also fall under the framework, and the central bank may bring additional token categories into scope later.

The presidential order created a Virtual Asset Council led by the CBN, with the Nigeria Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) serving as its vice chairs.

The CBN has reportedly set a capital requirement of 15 billion naira (about $10.5 million) for foreign stablecoin issuers. It has also tightened rules on peer-to-peer crypto trading.

The SEC, for its part, published draft rules for stablecoin issuers on August 20, 2026. Under that proposal, stablecoins backed by foreign currency would need reserves of at least 120%, while naira-backed and commodity-backed tokens would require 100%. Crypto-backed coins would start at 150%.

The SEC's draft also sets capital requirements for digital asset firms between 200 million naira (about $140,600) and 2 billion naira (about $1.4 million), with the highest tier aimed at exchanges and custodians. The regulator doubled the required capital in a notice issued in January 2026. Under the draft, foreign companies must additionally appoint a representative in Nigeria. Read together, the two regulators' numbers point to foreign stablecoin issuers facing the steepest capital hurdle in the framework: the CBN's reported 15 billion naira requirement exceeds the top of the SEC's range by more than seven times.

Critics say the SEC's requirements favor large, established players and hurt small local startups.

Will Nigerians choose a naira stablecoin over dollar coins?

cNGN began a pilot on February 27, 2024. It was pitched as an alternative to the eNaira, the government digital currency that failed to catch on, as Cryptopolitan reported. Crypto commentator Rume Ophi linked the eNaira's weak start to a public view that it was a government tool deployed against the crypto industry. Separate tracking data has pointed to cNGN issuance outpacing its adoption.

Nigerians have long preferred dollars to the naira. During the 2024 clampdown on Binance, traders stocked up on Tether (USDT) as the naira lost value. The new framework lands in a market where authorities moved against crypto activity as recently as 2024.

CBN Governor Yemi Cardoso said $26 billion moved through Binance in 2023 from sources that could not be identified. Amid the standoff, Nigerian access to the exchange was blocked, and Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan was detained.

Even so, Nigeria took in more than $92.1 billion in crypto between July 2024 and June 2025, a period during which the standoff was still ongoing. That volume is the pool of users both foreign dollar coins and cNGN are competing for, and the licensing terms will determine which issuers can legally serve it.

The CBN reportedly opened a sandbox, a test program for stablecoins, on August 12, 2026. The bank is now expected to share details from the program and grant licenses to companies that passed. The checkpoints to watch from here are the sandbox findings, the first licenses granted, and whether cNGN's adoption starts to close the gap with its issuance.