Nigeria crypto firms face $744,000 capital rule as CBN, SEC split oversight

Higher compliance costs

The rules also raise the cost of compliance. Firms are prohibited from counting the same capital toward both their CBN and their SEC requirements. In practice, a company active in trading and payments has to hold capital for each regulatory track separately.

For exchanges and payment-focused crypto startups, this means the price of operating across both segments is higher than it would be if one pool of capital could satisfy both authorities. Businesses that stay within a single market will face a simpler path than those that straddle the two.

Why it matters

Nigeria is one of Africa's most active crypto markets, and the question of which agency supervises which activity has long left companies working in a grey area. By assigning trading and payments to different regulators and spelling out how they overlap, the framework gives firms a clearer picture of what they need to do to operate legally.

The trade-off is cost. Companies that want to offer both services will need to budget for two authorisations and two capital commitments, which may favour better-funded operators and push smaller players to narrow their offering.