Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission has made frank effort to regulate the crypto sector. They become more interested in cryptocurrency regulation after they see the upticks of bitcoin price. SEC claims that the regulation will be driven by the purpose of protecting investors and promoting industry standards.
They tend to classify crypto asset as security unless it can be proven otherwise. The rule will compell all companies issuing and dealing with cryptocurrency on blockchain to register with the Security and Exchange commission in Nigeria.
Until now, Nigeria's stance on crypto has been rather hostile. In 2017, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular to all financial institutions banning crypto transactions and operations and warning of unregulated exchanges and a supposed susceptibility to criminal abuse.
Still, despite initial reticence toward crypto regulation, Nigeria's developing adoption of Bitcoin has seemingly forced the hand of its financial authorities.
According to Chainalysis' 2020 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Nigeria places 8th among 154 countries for its significant on-chain cryptocurrency activity.
Supporting this notion, data from trading analytics site Useful Tulips shows that peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin trading volumes in Sub Saharan Africa are some of the highest in the world—second only to North America.
Out of the 20 countries south of the Sahara, Nigeria stands in pole position for P2P Bitcoin trading with weekly volume averaging $7.3 million—down from an all-time high in late July of $10.3 million