The Nigerian Senate has taken a monumental step toward establishing an advanced, legal regulatory structure for the country's booming digital finance landscape by passing the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) Regulation Bill, 2026 for a crucial second reading.
Leading the legislative debate on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, on behalf of Deputy Senate President Senator Jibrin Barau, Senator Tahir Monguno lamented that despite Nigeria maintaining one of the highest institutional rates of cryptocurrency adoption on the global stage, the country has lagged behind African peers like Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana in codifying clear digital market laws.
Lawmakers explicitly warned that the current regulatory vacuum leaves millions of tech-savvy youth vulnerable to multi-million dollar exchange collapses, while inadvertently creating systemic avenues for illicit financial flows, black-market speculation, and fraud.
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The proposed landmark legislation seeks to introduce mandatory registration, operational transparency guidelines, and criminal enforcement penalties for crypto exchanges operating within the national airspace.
Contributing to the high-level plenary debate, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan shared a deeply personal narrative regarding her son’s global gaming enterprise, emphasizing that the country's lack of precise regulatory clarity continuously drives brilliant tech innovators to register their firms abroad, draining billions of dollars in foreign direct investment.
While Senator Adams Oshiomhole pressured the chamber to accelerate the bill's passage into law, Senator Adetokunbo Abiru advised that the text be systematically harmonized with the existing Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) to avoid institutional conflicts.
Following widespread support, the Senate referred the bill to its Committee on Capital Market with a strict four-week mandate to submit a definitive harmonized report.
#CryptoRegulationNigeria #NigerianSenate #Jibrin Barau #VASPBill2026 #NatashaAkpoti #Web3Nigeria #CryptoNews #Abiru
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