Nigeria Sets 15 Billion Naira Capital Floor for Dollar Stablecoins

The Central Bank of Nigeria has put a price on issuing a dollar stablecoin to Nigerians: 15 billion naira of paid-up capital, held by a company incorporated in Nigeria. Its rules for non-security virtual assets took effect on 5 November. The circular carries the signature of Musa Jimoh, director of the payments system policy department. A naira-referenced issuer needs 10 billion. Everyone else in the business, exchanges and wallet providers included, needs 1 billion. Algorithmic stablecoins are prohibited outright.

Two classes, and no route around incorporation

The regulations create two issuer classes. Class 1 is the Naira-referenced Issuer Licence; Class 2 covers foreign currency. A foreign-currency stablecoin can reach a Nigerian only as a Class 2 token issued through a Nigerian-incorporated entity, and a licence held elsewhere replaces neither that licence nor approval of the token itself. The rules also reach operators with no office in the country. They apply where an activity is carried on in or from Nigeria, or "directed at persons in Nigeria," the document says. Physical presence is not the test.

"There is no offshore issuer exemption from incorporation, licensing or capital," the regulations said.

Each token needs its own clearance first. "Issuance of a token shall not commence until the Bank has granted Token Approval," the text says. The Block reported on Friday morning that the approval covers a token's classification, reference currency, reserve arrangements, name, ticker and supported networks. That list appears in no other account read here, so it rests on one outlet.

The naira figures are firm, the dollar ones are not

Four Nigerian outlets and Cointelegraph print the same three numbers. Punch quotes the text behind them, which requires a Class 2 issuer to hold its 15 billion "on entry and at all times thereafter," or more if the bank prescribes it. The dollar conversions are another matter. TechCabal called 15 billion naira $11.16 million and 1 billion naira $744,000; Cointelegraph published $11.1 million and $742,000; Techpoint gave $11.1 million and $741,400. Those do not reconcile. The regulations are written in naira, so this piece gives no dollar figure.

What the reserves have to look like

A Class 1 token must track the naira one for one. Its backing sits in what the document calls Eligible Reserve Assets, and supply cannot run ahead of it: no new tokens are minted until the equivalent assets have been received. Redemption stays available at par, with no standard charge. Punch and CoinAfrica both report reserves of at least 100 per cent plus a two per cent buffer. Cointelegraph and CoinAfrica both put at least 40 per cent of the pool in cash or qualifying liquid assets. The schedule that would settle those percentages was missing from the copy readable at this desk. Paying interest or yield to holders is banned. So is presenting a stablecoin as a bank deposit, or as insured.

When the clock starts is still blank

Existing operators have 180 days to apply. TechCabal, BusinessDay, CoinAfrica and Cointelegraph add 30 days to register and 60 days to begin supervisory reporting. None of those periods could be checked against the circular here, because the text available ran out before the transitional sections. TechCabal supplies the part that decides whether any of it is a deadline, reporting that the bank has yet to specify when the period begins. CoinAfrica frames registration as due within 30 days of commencement, which is not a date either. The accounts also split on when the document appeared, Thursday evening by two readings and Friday by Punch's. We could not establish which is right.

Nigeria ranked third in the Chainalysis adoption index published on 23 September, and first in its peer-to-peer sub-ranking. The IMF warned in June that heavy dollar-stablecoin use there risked what it called "digital dollarisation". Ghana's central bank has been drafting a directive of its own, and a licence with a capital floor attached turned up this year in Florida's regime. What has not turned up is a central-bank voice. Across nine pieces read for this story, every quotation is regulation text or a named industry figure.