Nigeria’s Central Bank Launches Crypto Oversight Pilot With KuCoin and Local Firms

Overview

• Nigeria’s central bank opened a supervisory pilot for virtual asset providers and named six participants, with KuCoin as the only global exchange alongside cNGN, Flutterwave, Juicyway, KoinKoin and Paystack.
• The program is a 6–9 month experiment that places firms under direct oversight in a controlled setting and does not grant licenses.
• Participants must submit regular compliance data and undergo audits of customer onboarding and ID checks, sanctions screening and transaction monitoring, plus show they can apply the Travel Rule, which attaches sender and receiver details to cross-border crypto transfers.
• The pilot measures anti–money-laundering, counter–terrorist-financing and counter–proliferation controls against Financial Action Task Force standards, including Recommendations 15 and 16.
• Officials say the goal is a shift to risk-based rules that can filter out bad actors and keep an estimated $92.1 billion in annual crypto activity within a clearer domestic perimeter, while testing if a major global platform can operate under local supervision.