Nigeria's SEC grants Approval-in-Principle to seven more crypto firms including Luno and Koinkoin

Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted Approval-in-Principle (AIP) to seven digital asset companies: Bitbarter Technologies, Luno Fintech Nigeria, GetEquity, Koinkoin Global Network, Wrapped CBDC, Trovotech, and Blockvault Custodian, under its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), bringing the total number of AIP recipients to at least eleven since the programme launched in August 2024.

AIP is not a full operating licence. It grants conditional permission to operate under close SEC supervision for up to 12 months, after which compliant firms can transition to full registration as digital asset exchanges, custodians, or offering platforms; the approvals follow the implementation of the Investments and Securities Act (ISA) 2025, which formally classifies virtual assets as securities and gives the SEC explicit authority to regulate crypto businesses.

Nigeria is rapidly formalising its crypto regulatory architecture, with at least eleven digital asset businesses now inside the SEC's framework and the ISA 2025 giving the regulator explicit statutory authority; the era of operating in a grey zone between Central Bank restrictions and securities rules is closing fast.

For crypto firms currently operating informally in Nigeria, the 12-month AIP window signals that the SEC intends to enforce compliance boundaries within the next one to two years, making entry into ARIP or the Regulatory Incubation programme an urgent strategic decision rather than an optional one.

Beyond Nigeria, regulators in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana, all of which are developing or refining their own digital asset frameworks, will be watching how Nigeria's structured sandbox-to-licence pathway performs, as it offers a replicable model for bringing crypto exchanges into formal financial market infrastructure across the continent.