Nigeria’s new crypto rules say P2P platforms must match your name and BVN. Here’s what changes

If you buy or sell stablecoins (crypto coins pegged to the naira or the dollar) on a peer-to-peer (P2P) app in Nigeria, the way you pay is about to matter a lot more. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s new CBN crypto rules say a P2P platform may not release or credit a covered token until it has checked that the name and Bank Verification Number (BVN) on the naira account match the verified customer. Paying from a friend’s account, or receiving money from a stranger’s, is exactly what the rules are built to stop.

The CBN has published a rulebook of more than 160 pages for stablecoins, crypto exchanges, wallets and P2P trading in Nigeria. For everyday traders, the biggest change is that your bank account, your BVN and your P2P profile now have to belong to the same person.

The document is called the Regulations for the Operations of Non-Security Virtual Assets in Nigeria and is dated November 2026. Non-security virtual assets are crypto tokens used for payments and holding value, such as stablecoins, rather than tokens sold as investments, which the SEC oversees.

Section 10 deals with what most Nigerians know as P2P: you agree a rate with another user, send naira by bank transfer, and the platform releases the crypto from escrow. It covers platforms that match buyers and sellers, hold coins in escrow or help settle trades in the tokens the CBN regulates: approved naira and foreign-currency stablecoins, deposit money tokens and any other token the CBN designates. A purely private trade between two people, with no platform involved, is outside this section. Here is what it requires of the platform:

The real shift: until now, many P2P trades depended on trust between two strangers and whatever account was handy. Under these rules the platform carries the duty to prove who paid whom, and trades that cannot be matched should not go through.

The rules also set the bar for companies, which decides who can keep offering these services:

The penalty for running without the right licence is a fine of at least ₦100 million plus at least ₦1 million for each day it continues. That adds up fast: a platform that kept operating unlicensed for 30 days would face a minimum of ₦130 million.

The rulebook says the CBN will name the start date in its issuing instrument, and that the 30, 60 and 180 day deadlines run from that date. The regulation document itself does not print the date, so watch for the CBN’s circular and for notices from the apps you use.

If you hold crypto on an exchange, this is also a good week to review your account security. TechCity’s guide on what to do after an exchange hack walks through two-step login and withdrawal settings, and our piece on protecting your money from SIM swap fraud applies to crypto apps too.

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