Nigeria's new stablecoin rules: what they mean if you hold USDT

The first is section 13.2, which bans paying or facilitating interest, yield or returns to anyone for holding a stablecoin. The second is section 10.6.2, which stops a provider from facilitating a peer-to-peer swap between naira and a dollar stablecoin without express CBN approval. If you've been earning a percentage on a USDT balance, or you buy and sell USDT through a P2P desk, those two sections are about you.

The document is called Regulations for the Operations of Non-Security Virtual Assets in Nigeria, it's issued under the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, and it's on the CBN's own website. Every section quoted below comes from it rather than from anybody's summary of it.

What did the CBN actually change on 5 November 2026?

The CBN created a licence regime for stablecoins and for the companies that move them. There are now two issuer classes: Class 1 for tokens pegged to the naira, and Class 2 for tokens referencing a foreign currency, which is where USDT and USDC sit. Section 6.2 sets out six categories of permission in all.

Activities that now need the CBN's authorisation in their own right:

• Issuing a stablecoin, under a Class 1 or Class 2 Issuer Licence.
• Running a peer-to-peer service in a regulated token, under section 10.2.2.
• Customer transfers, merchant payments, remittances, payment gateways and stored-value products built on tokens.
• Converting between naira and a Class 2 stablecoin on a P2P basis, which section 10.6.2 puts behind express approval.

One thing worth knowing about how the two regulators now split the work: the SEC keeps trading and investment custody, so an SEC-licensed platform can still list a stablecoin or hold it for a trading client. The CBN has taken the payments side. A company approved for one can't assume it covers the other, and section 15 and section 16 set capital for each separately.

Do you have to do anything if you hold USDT or USDC?

No. The regulations are written as duties on issuers, licensees and service providers. Section 2.1.1 says no person shall conduct a regulated activity without a licence, and holding a stablecoin isn't a regulated activity. Your balance doesn't have to be declared, converted, registered or moved because of this document.

What it means for you: your USDT is still yours, it's still legal to buy, hold and sell crypto as an individual in Nigeria, and the deadlines in the document are deadlines for companies. What changes is what the companies you use are allowed to offer you, which is a different thing and it's the rest of this article.

There is one clause that binds any person rather than any company, and it's short. Section 10.6.4 says no person shall structure, split, route, facilitate or use a P2P transaction to get around the CBN's requirements, and section 11.10.15 says the same about the cross-border rules. Breaking one large naira-to-USDT swap into six small ones to stay under somebody's threshold is the behaviour those two sections describe.

Is earning interest on a stablecoin still allowed in Nigeria?

No, not from a provider the CBN regulates. Section 13.2 prohibits paying or facilitating interest, yield or returns to holders for holding a stablecoin. That's a ban on the product rather than a cap on the rate, so an app that pays you a percentage for leaving USDT or USDC sitting in it has to stop paying it.

Section 13.3 closes the other half of the same thing. An issuer can't use its reserves for operating expenses, lending, staking, or as collateral for borrowing. Those are the activities that generated the yield in the first place, so the rule removes the product and the engine behind it together.

This is the line in the whole document most likely to change something a Nigerian reader actually has. Dollar-stablecoin savings features have been sold here for years: Busha's own home page advertises "Earn up to 18% annual interest" and describes "optional yield opportunities available on eligible digital assets", without saying which assets those are, read on 10 November 2026. Busha launched Busha Yield on USDT and USDC in March 2022 at up to 10% a year with a 10 USDT minimum.

What it means for you: if any part of your dollar balance is in an earn, yield or savings feature, open that screen this week and read what it says it pays you on. A feature that pays you for holding a dollar stablecoin is the thing section 13.2 describes, and the safest assumption is that it changes rather than that it doesn't.

What changes about buying and selling USDT peer-to-peer?

Peer-to-peer is now a licensed activity, and the CBN has taken hold of the naira side of it. Section 10.2.2 says nobody may operate, facilitate or hold themselves out as providing a P2P service without the licence and the CBN's approval. Section 10.6.2 goes further for dollar stablecoins specifically.

Three separate requirements sit on a single P2P trade:

• Section 10.6.2: a provider can't facilitate a P2P transaction that converts between naira and a Class 2 stablecoin without express CBN approval.
• Section 10.5.1: the naira leg has to run through a Nigerian banking, payment or settlement channel the CBN permits.
• Section 10.3.3: the provider can't release or credit the token until it has verified the account details on the other side.

What it means for you: a P2P trade is no longer two people and a bank transfer. The naira has to move through a channel the CBN allows, and the provider in the middle needs a permission for that specific swap. If you buy USDT through a merchant on a P2P board, the question to ask is which of those permissions the board has, and most Nigerians using P2P have no way to check. Buying inside an app removes that leg altogether: Daya Coins funds from your own Daya naira account, with no peer-to-peer step in the middle.

Can you still price or settle a Nigerian bill in USDT?

No. Section 7.5 says a Class 2 Token Approval doesn't allow a token to be used to settle, price or discharge a domestic obligation denominated in naira. A dollar stablecoin can be bought, held and sold in Nigeria. It can't be the thing you pay a Nigerian naira debt with.

Two neighbouring rules matter if money crosses a border. Section 11.10.8 says a virtual asset can't be used to settle or discharge a foreign obligation except under an arrangement the CBN has approved. And section 11.10.6(c) says a capital inflow received as a virtual asset doesn't qualify for an electronic Certificate of Capital Importation until it's been converted into naira through an Authorised Dealer, which matters to anyone who brought investment money in as USDT and expects to take it out again.

A Certificate of Capital Importation is the document a bank issues when foreign money comes into Nigeria, and it's what lets you take the money and its returns back out in foreign currency later. Arriving in USDT no longer earns you one on its own.

How much capital does a stablecoin issuer need now?

The document sets three figures of its own, and they decide which companies can keep operating. Section 15.1 sets ten billion naira for a Class 1 licensed issuer, section 15.2 sets fifteen billion naira for a Class 2 licensed issuer, and section 16.1 sets one billion naira for other non-security virtual asset services. Each has to be held on entry and at all times.

Section 16.1 adds that the one billion naira sits on top of any capital the SEC requires where a company also holds an SEC licence, so the same money can't be counted twice.

Section 11.3.1(a) is a separate requirement and it's often reported as though it were the capital figure. It sets ten million US dollars of operational liquidity for a Class 2 issuer, for meeting redemptions. That's money held to pay customers back, not the paid-up capital in section 15.2.

The practical consequence for a foreign issuer is in section 11.1: a licence from somewhere else is no longer enough. A foreign-currency stablecoin has to be issued through a Nigerian-incorporated entity holding a Class 2 Foreign Currency Issuer Licence, and that Nigerian entity carries the compliance responsibility even inside an international group.

What happens to the apps that aren't licensed yet?

They get a transition window rather than a shutdown. Existing operators have 180 days to apply and may continue only at their current scale while they do it, with registration inside 30 days and supervisory reporting starting inside 60 days, as reported on 6 November 2026 and on 7 November.

Section 13.1 also names tokens nobody may deal in at all. Algorithmic stablecoins without full reserve backing are prohibited, as are tokens issued by sanctioned entities or from sanctioned jurisdictions. Section 13.7 bans a provider from presenting a stablecoin as a bank deposit or as NDIC-insured, or from describing its licence or capital deposit as a CBN guarantee.

What it means for you: a dollar stablecoin isn't insured money, and from now on nobody in Nigeria is allowed to imply to you that it is. If an app's copy told you your balance was protected, expect that wording to change.

Where does Daya Coins fit?

Daya Coins buys and sells crypto from your own Daya naira account with no peer-to-peer step, which is the leg section 10.6.2 has now put behind express approval, and it charges no buy fee, no sell fee, no withdrawal fee and no network fee on your side. Its own page says Daya makes its money on the spread built into the rate you see.

Daya Coins pays nothing for holding a balance, so section 13.2 doesn't take anything away from it. You buy, you hold, you sell, and the naira goes out to a Nigerian bank account. Selling crypto and getting paid in naira is live, and if you want to know what a sale actually costs across apps, our comparison of the apps that sell USDT for naira works the published numbers through.

Where Daya Coins isn't the answer: it has no earn or savings feature, so if what you wanted was a dollar return rather than a dollar balance, a stablecoin is now the wrong instrument for it in Nigeria and dollar investment apps are a different question with different rules behind them. What Daya Coins is built for is getting into and out of a position quickly, including any token you can paste a contract address for, and that's the part none of these sections touch.

Whichever app you're using, look it up yourself. Our piece on whether crypto is legal in Nigeria explains what the SEC's register shows and what its approvals do and don't mean, and the money rules page tracks what's in force.

What should you check in your own app this week?

None of these takes more than a couple of minutes.

1. Open any earn, yield or savings screen and read what it pays you on. If it pays you for holding a dollar stablecoin, section 13.2 is about it.
2. Check whether you can still withdraw at par. Section 11.8(a) requires issuers to give clear, legally enforceable redemption rights, and section 13.4 says redemption at par stays available without standard redemption charges.
3. If you buy through P2P, ask the provider which CBN permissions it holds for the naira leg. Section 10.6.2 is the one to name.
4. If you brought investment money into Nigeria as USDT, talk to your bank about section 11.10.6(c) before you plan on taking it out in dollars.

None of this is urgent for a balance you simply hold. It's urgent for a balance that's earning you something, because that's the feature the CBN has removed.