Virtual Assets Regulation: President Tinubu Orders the CBN, SEC, NRS, NFIU, and ONSA to Align in 30 Days

by Edison Irabor, Senior Policy Reporter

ABUJA FCT, Nigeria — 17 July 2026 — In what is being hailed as one of the most consequential structural milestones for Nigeria’s digital economy, President Bola Tinubu has officially signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026.

The landmark directive, which takes effect immediately under Section 5 of the Nigerian Constitution, formally establishes a coordinated supervision model designed to eliminate regulatory friction, safeguard consumers, and pull Nigeria’s parallel digital asset ecosystem into a unified oversight structure.

Rather than trying to pass new primary legislation or erect an entirely new bureaucratic agency, the Executive Order introduces a distributed administrative architecture. It creates a strategic Virtual Asset Council chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) serving as vice-chairs, alongside the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

For market watchers, this executive order is a welcome development. Notably, the Executive Order serves as the operational execution of the earlier exposed Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) Framework whitepaper, whose foundations were structurally introduced in the first quarter of the year.

The Road from April: From the CBN Pilot to Sovereign Mandate

To truly understand the significance of today’s Executive Order, one must look back to April 2026. At the start of that month, the CBN quietly launched its AML/CFT/CPF Supervision Pilot for a select cohort of six major Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs)—including infrastructure providers like Flutterwave, Paystack, and cNGN.

Apparently, that April pilot was the CBN’s intentional step towards data-gathering precursor to the VARA Framework. The goal was to establish a supervisory baseline, trial the tracking of the FATF Travel Rule, and test institutional communication channels before scaling the oversight architecture to the wider market.

By signing this Executive Order, President Tinubu has transformed the theoretical VARA whitepaper guidelines and pilot workflows introduced in April into a binding, cross-agency state apparatus. 

Commenting on the announcement, Franklin Peters, the Executive Chair of the Virtual Asset Service Providers Association (VASPA) and Founder & CEO of Boundlesspay, highlighted its necessity for the local ecosystem:

“President Tinubu’s Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination is a significant and welcome development for Nigeria’s digital asset ecosystem.”

“For years, one of the biggest challenges has not been the complete absence of regulation, but regulatory fragmentation. Different agencies have approached the same industry through separate mandates, leaving legitimate operators to navigate overlaps, gaps and, sometimes, conflicting expectations. Unfortunately, fraudulent operators have also exploited those gaps.”

Inside the Architecture: “Distributed Supervision” without Bureaucracy

The presidency’s briefing, signed by Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga, candidly outlines the systemic vulnerabilities that forced the state’s hand: a fragmented regulatory environment where agencies operated in silos, leaving wide gaps for fraudulent operators to exploit an ecosystem that transacts over $92 billion annually.

To solve this without adding stifling layers of new red tape, the Order deploys three highly coordinated structural mechanisms:

• The Virtual Asset Council: The high-level strategic body responsible for dictating policy direction, resolving inter-agency jurisdictional deadlocks, and working with the Attorney-General to align digital assets with national security and fiscal goals.
• The Virtual Asset Office (named the Virtual Asset Regulatory Office under VARA Framework): Domiciled at the CBN, this functions as the Council’s daily operational engine. It handles cross-agency application tracking, reporting, and data sharing.
• The Supervisory Tech (SuperTech Fabric): The operational engine is backed by an integrated supervisory technology platform. This creates a “Report Once, Share Many” data pipeline, giving multiple agencies real-time visibility into operator compliance while preserving each agency’s independent data control.

Highlighting this structural shift, compliance professional and certified cryptocurrency compliance specialist Gabriel Eze, the Assistant Secretary-General of VASPA and Lead Associate at Infusion Lawyers, noted: “The new Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination 2026, marks a major step forward. By establishing a unified coordination council, the order effectively harmonizes oversight across key financial bodies, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria (SEC), and the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).”

Except for the lack of legislative backing, this coordinated regulatory approach resembles an agile adaptation of Dubai’s single-jurisdiction VARA model, but tailored explicitly to fit a complex, federal multi-agency landscape like Nigeria’s.

Delineation of Duties: Activity-Based Regulatory Clarity

One of the greatest operational bottlenecks for Web3 and fintech founders in Nigeria has been the persistent question: “Who is my primary regulator?” The Executive Order resolves this ambiguity by adopting strict Activity-Based Supervision, mapping obligations directly to the economic function of the asset rather than institutional labels:

Core Agency	Designated Oversight Focus	Registration Nature
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)	Security Tokens, Digital Equities, and Capital Market Issuances	Financial Securities Gatekeeping
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)	Payment, Settlement, Custody, and Non-Security Virtual Assets	Monetary & Settlement Systems
Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS)	Tax Policy Operationalization & Revenue Framework Integration	Fiscal Compliance & Value Realization

 

This exact framework-driven mapping is favored by private sector leaders. As Franklin Peters observed: “The decision to coordinate oversight without creating another regulator or taking powers away from existing agencies is sensible. The proposed activity-based approach to registration should also provide greater clarity on which regulator is responsible for each type of virtual asset service.”

The Sandbox and the Tax Agenda: Paving the Way for a $1 Trillion Economy

Complementing this structural alignment, two critical operational rollouts are occurring simultaneously:

1. The CBN Regulatory Sandbox

Building upon the data compiled during the April VASP pilot, the CBN is proceeding with an expanded, live regulatory sandbox. This controlled testing perimeter allows approved operators to pilot innovative blockchain solutions, programmable finance models, and stablecoin utilities under strict supervisory monitoring. This ensures that before a product hits the mass retail market, its implications on monetary sovereignty, consumer data privacy, and systemic financial stability are fully vetted.

2. The NRS Virtual Asset Tax Policy

Concurrently, the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) is preparing to release a dedicated tax policy for the virtual asset sector. Rather than introducing new tax burdens, this framework operationalizes existing fiscal laws specifically for digital assets. By clarifying tax liabilities for operators and investors, the state is building a mature, reciprocal social contract: providing a safe, legally recognized infrastructure in exchange for transparent, compliant revenue collection to drive domestic GDP growth.

From Validation to Constructive Engagement: A Legislative Perspective

The alignment between the executive and legislative arms of government is also crucial for the Order’s success. Oluwasegun Kosemani, Technical Adviser to the Chairman, National Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on the Economic, Regulatory and Security Implications of Cryptocurrency Adoption and PoS Operations, confirmed that the Executive Order reflects months of institutional dialogue and validates long-standing industry concerns about operating in silos.

Kosemani stressed that this validation is not for mere “victory laps” but is a critical moment for unity and active engagement with the new governance structures:

“For months, many of us have consistently spoken about the dangers of fragmentation, institutions operating in silos, overlapping mandates, and the urgent need for harmonisation through one coordinated framework that allows every institution to play its rightful role without unnecessary conflicts. Reading the President’s Executive Order honestly felt like someone at the Presidency took many of the concerns we have repeatedly raised as an industry, highlighted them, and said, ‘We hear you.’

“That should encourage every one of us.

“This is not the time for victory laps, this is the time for unity. The work of the National Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on the Economic, Regulatory and Security Implications of Cryptocurrency Adoption and PoS Operations has always pointed in this direction. Through stakeholder engagements, policy conversations and institutional dialogue, one message kept coming back repeatedly: Nigeria cannot build a globally competitive digital asset ecosystem if its institutions continue operating independently without coordination.

“Today, we are seeing the beginning of that coordination.

“The Executive Order creates an opportunity for us to finally move beyond fragmented conversations and begin building what many of us have advocated for all along: One industry, One coordinated framework, One national direction.

“This is exactly why we must continue engaging constructively with the CBN, SEC, NFIU, NRS, CAC, ONSA and every institution now represented within the new governance structure.

“The work is not finished, if anything, it has only just begun.”

The Next Steps: The Real Test of Implementation

The signing of the Executive Order effectively brings the era of regulatory ambiguity to a close. The Virtual Asset Council has been given a strict 30-day mandate to develop and deliver a comprehensive Harmonised Implementation Framework to guide all participating agencies. Concurrently, the Federal Government is finalizing its highly anticipated long-term Virtual Assets White Paper, which will outline the country’s multi-year digital sovereignty roadmap.

Yet, while the policy architecture is structurally sound on paper, the private sector remains keenly focused on how these directives manifest operationally. Peters emphasized the practical expectations of the broader industry:

“However, the real test will be implementation.”

“Harmonisation must result in clear licensing pathways, predictable requirements, consistent enforcement, reasonable timelines and meaningful engagement with industry participants. It must not become multiple approvals and overlapping obligations under a different name.”

“As Executive Chair of VASPA and founder of BoundlessPay, I welcome the effort to balance consumer protection, national security, financial integrity and responsible innovation. The virtual asset industry is not asking to operate outside regulation. We are asking for regulation that is coherent, proportionate and informed by how the technology and market actually work.”

Echoing this cautious optimism, Gabriel Eze balanced the technical potential of the order with a pragmatic compliance reality check on agency cooperation:

“However, given years of fragmented policies, it remains to be seen if these agencies will now really work together to execute this vision. The work rests in effective implementation without creating redundant bureaucratic bottlenecks.”

“The 30-day implementation framework, proposed regulatory sandbox, tax policy and national Virtual Assets White Paper provide an important opportunity to get this right. Industry participation should be built into the process from the beginning.”

“Nigeria now has an opportunity to move from regulatory reaction to regulatory leadership. We should take it.”

Through gradual formalization processes, Nigeria continues to officially shift from defensive prohibition to offensive institutionalization. By establishing Africa’s first fully operational, coordinated regulatory framework dedicated to virtual assets, the leading market in Africa by adoption is setting an aggressive regulatory precedent for emerging markets worldwide—strategic alignment by existing regulators instead of attempting to create any new statutory agency.

Will CBN, SEC, NRS, NFIU, and ONSA execute the order to the letter? Time will tell for sure. For now, stakeholders look forward to the Harmonised Implementation Framework in 30 days.