What The Virtual Assets Coordination Order Means For Digital Assets Operators
The coming into force of the Investments and Securities Act 2025, which repealed the Investments and Securities Act 2007, marked significant changes to the regulatory framework applicable to virtual and digital assets in Nigeria. Virtual and digital assets are now recognized as securities, and the businesses involved in activities relating to such assets falls within the regulatory purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The implications of this reclassification for issuers, exchanges and the wider public have been discussed in previous articles. It has, however, become clear that this is only one aspect of the evolving regulatory framework applicable to digital-asset businesses in Nigeria. Three separate regulatory tracks, an executive coordination order, an increase in the capital requirements prescribed by the SEC, and a bill currently before the Senate have, over the past eighteen months, further shaped the regulatory framework applicable to digital asset businesses in Nigeria.