Nigeria Mulls Crypto Regulation Amid Broader Push for Tax Law Reforms

• Nigeria’s FIRS has revealed a plan for crypto regulation.
• The development came amid a broader push for a tax system overhaul.
• The FIRS chairman said that the regulation wouldn’t be “injurious” to Nigeria’s economic development.

Nigeria ’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is drumming up support for a new Executive Bill that seeks to reform the country’s tax administration and introduce guidelines for cryptocurrency regulation.

FIRS chairman Zacch Adedeji disclosed the development on Saturday during a stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos with a joint committee of the National Assembly on Finance, local media outlets reported.

Nigeria Races to Regulate Crypto

According to one report , Adedeji said the move to regulate crypto would see Nigeria’s economy tapping into the full potential of digital assets while mitigating their associated risks.

“Today, we cannot run away from the cryptocurrency ecosystem because it is the in-thing. But as it stands in Nigeria today, there is no law that regulates cryptocurrency operations. We need a law that regulates that area of our economy.” Adedeji stated. “We will regulate it in a way that is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria.”

The tax watchdog’s move came after Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, recently urged the newly constituted Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) board to address the gap in crypto regulation.

President Bola Tinubu approved the board’s mandate in April this year, ushering in Nigeria’s new era of financial regulation. Since then, the SEC has initiated a process to amend the country’s Rules on Digital Assets Issuance, Offering Platforms, Exchange, and Custody.

The SEC said the amendment aimed to expand the regulation’s scope to match “current realities.”

Stay updated on Tigran Gambaryan’s ongoing detention in Nigeria:
Tigran Gambaryan Denied Access to Lawyers as Health Deteriorates

Read about Ghana’s newly proposed crypto regulation rules:
Ghana Proposes Crypto Exchange Regulation Rules to Protect Consumers