By Prof.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 350 million unbanked adults, according to the Cambridge Centre for Digital Innovation.legate integration in the US, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to grapple with profound financial exclusion.

At the same time, remittance inflows to the region topped US$54 billion in 2023, a lifeline for many households but one burdened by high fees and slow settlement times under traditional correspondent-bank models.

Digital currencies, properly regulated, can slash remittance costs, broaden financial inclusion, and ignite local fintech ecosystems. The question is not whether Africa should engage with crypto but how—and under what legal framework—to harness its transformative potential safely and equitably.

This article examines Nigeria’s Investments and Securities Act 2024 (ISA 2024) as a pioneering blueprint for continental crypto regulation. It will unpack how ISA 2024 brings cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities within the remit of the Nigerian SEC, compare legislative approaches across South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Mauritius, and quantify the economic dividends of regulated digital-asset markets in driving inclusion, innovation, and resilience. Finally, it will identify the legal and operational challenges—ranging from AML/CFT gaps to capacity constraints—and propose harmonized, pan-African strategies to ensure digital currencies serve as engines of sustainable growth across the continent.

Nigeria’s ISA 2024—A bold legislative framework

This year, Nigeria’s long-awaited capital-markets reforms came into effect with the enactment of ISA 2024, a comprehensive overhaul of the 1999 Act. A key highlight is the introduction of express provisions for cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities.

Earlier iterations of the Bill encountered setbacks due to concerns over market abuse and consumer protection. However, the final Act, assented to in April 2024 by President Bola Tinubu, addresses these issues directly.

Its provisions empower the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to register, license, and supervise any person, firm, or corporation engaged in virtual-asset activities.

This broad mandate covers a wide range of digital-asset service providers, including exchanges, custodians, and token issuers.

It also places cryptocurrencies and tokenized securities within the same legal framework as debentures, stocks, and bonds, recognizing digital assets as integral components of the capital market.

Furthermore, the Act enhances the SEC’s toolkit for combating Ponzi and pyramid schemes—a persistent scourge in unregulated crypto markets—by prescribing penalties of up to ten years’ imprisonment for convicted offenders.

These measures collectively bolster Nigeria’s capacity to police market abuses and fortify investor confidence.

To guard against systemic shocks, the SEC can now impose circuit breakers and liquidity-stress tests on exchanges, ensuring orderly markets during periods of extreme volatility.

Collectively, these provisions aim not only to shield the uninformed retail investor but also to signal to sophisticated, global institutional players that Nigeria’s digital-asset markets meet international best-practice benchmarks.

In codifying digital assets as securities and equipping the SEC with modern enforcement and supervisory tools, ISA 2024 transforms Nigeria’s capital markets into a credible hub for blockchain innovation.

These reforms lay the groundwork for deeper fintech integration, enhanced investor protections, and the sustainable growth of Africa’s largest economy—offering a replicable template for the continent.

Comparative landscape—Digital-currency legislation in Africa

While Nigeria has moved swiftly to integrate crypto into its capital markets, other Sub-Saharan African nations are also advancing in this domain.

South Africa’s Financial Sector Regulation Act (no. 9 of 2017) already grants the regulators broad powers to license and supervise crypto-asset service providers.

However, the lack of express provisions for digital currencies in the main securities legislation—the Securities Services Act (no. 88 of 1973)—has posed an obstacle.

In early 2024, the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Legal Aspects of International Commercial Instruments (WIIC) highlighted the need for a new securities law to streamline the regulatory landscape.

In Kenya, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) have jointly overseen digital-asset activities since 2015, initially focusing on anti-scam efforts.

Now, the VASP Bill—which will create a licensing regime for virtual-asset service providers—is progressing through parliament.

The Bill also vests joint oversight in the CBK and CMA and prescribes penalties—up to five years’ imprisonment and fines of KSh 10 million—for unlicensed activity (CryptoDaily, 2025). While the VASP Bill has not yet been enacted, its passage through key committees signals Kenya’s