President Bola Tinubu has signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, to establish a coordinated oversight framework for Nigeria’s virtual assets industry. The Order which was made pursuant to section 5 of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 (as amended) and which takes effect immediately, is a response to a regulatory landscape that had become fragmented across multiple agencies with overlaps and enforcement gaps that exposed Nigerians to fraud, money laundering and unchecked losses from unregulated operators.
At the heart of the framework is a new Virtual Asset Council, chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as vice-chairs, and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA). The Council will provide strategic policy direction and work with the Attorney-General of the Federation to develop a harmonised legal and institutional framework for the sector. It will have a Virtual Asset Office domiciled in the CBN which will be its operational arm to coordinate information sharing and regulatory applications across agencies using an integrated supervisory platform.
The Order does not establish a new regulator or strip any powers from any agency and this is critically important. It is a coordination mechanism on top of the existing regime with SEC maintaining jurisdiction over virtual assets that qualify as securities under the ISA 2025, while the CBN undertakes supervision of payment, settlement and custody services involving non-security virtual assets. If it is not clear which regulator has regulatory jurisdiction and power over a virtual asset offering, the Council will make the decision.
The Order defines the sector’s immediate agenda. First, the CBN will introduce a regulatory sandbox to pilot virtual asset products and blockchain use cases under supervision. Second, the NRS will create a dedicated tax policy for the sector. Third, the Federal Government is currently working on finalising a Virtual Assets White Paper that will define the country’s long-term approach to the virtual assets sector. Finally, the Council has 30 days to produce a Harmonised Implementation Framework to give guidance on how agencies will apply the Order in practice.
The Executive Order, combined with the ISA 2025, represents a pivot in Nigeria’s approach to virtual assets from defining who regulates what, to ensuring that those regulators now move as one system, closing the gaps that made the sector attractive to bad actors in the first place.
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