Nigerian banks, asset managers and fintech companies are increasingly exploring opportunities to offer stablecoins and other digital asset services to customers, signalling a possible expansion of cryptocurrency adoption beyond individual traders into the mainstream financial services industry.
The development is creating new opportunities for digital asset infrastructure providers, even as regulators and industry operators grapple with the need to strengthen consumer protection, transparency and confidence in the emerging market.
Co-founder and chief executive officer of Quidax, Buchi Okoro, disclosed this at The Exchange, an invitation-only gathering on stablecoins and digital assets hosted by the company in partnership with Tether, issuer of USDT, at the Lagos Continental Hotel.
Okoro said financial institutions and businesses across different sectors were increasingly considering how to integrate stablecoins and digital assets into their offerings, adding that Quidax was positioning itself as a trusted infrastructure partner to support their entry into the market.
He said the company’s priorities over the next five years would include educating the market, maintaining high compliance standards and developing infrastructure that would enable businesses to offer digital asset services to their customers.
“Over the next five years, our focus is on supporting the ecosystem around us. More and more institutions – banks, asset managers, fintechs and businesses across every sector – are considering how to bring stablecoins and digital assets to their own customers,” he said.
Okoro noted that regulatory compliance and transparency would be critical to building confidence in the digital asset industry, particularly as adoption expands among institutional players.
“Trust is the new currency. In the physical world, people can walk into a branch, shake a hand and look someone in the eye. In the digital world, they cannot, so trust has to be earned in other ways: through regulation, transparency, and doing the right thing every single day,” he stated.
He said Quidax’s provisional licence from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reflected its commitment to operating within Nigeria’s evolving regulatory framework.
The event brought together regulators, industry leaders, fintech executives and legal and audit professionals to examine the opportunities and challenges surrounding stablecoins and digital assets.
Representing the SEC’s Director-General, Dr Emomotimi Agama, the Head of the Commission’s Lagos Zonal Office, John Briggs, said the growing volume of cryptocurrency transactions across Africa demonstrated that digital assets had become an increasingly important part of the financial landscape.
Citing Chainalysis data, Briggs disclosed that Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, representing an increase of approximately 32 per cent year-on-year.
Nigeria accounted for more than $92.1 billion of the transactions, making it the region’s largest market during the period.
He further cited the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index by Chainalysis, which ranked Nigeria third globally in overall cryptocurrency adoption and first in peer-to-peer activity and cross-border flows.
According to him, the figures reflect the growing use of digital assets by Nigerians, including traders, families and young entrepreneurs seeking to facilitate cross-border payments and manage currency risks.
“These are not abstract statistics. They are Nigerians – traders, families, young entrepreneurs – using digital assets, and stablecoins in particular, to move value across borders and manage currency risk,” Briggs said.
He maintained that the central issue for regulators was ensuring that the growth of digital assets was supported by trust and appropriate regulatory safeguards.
“The question before us is not whether digital assets will shape the future of finance in Nigeria. They already do. The question is whether that future will be built on trust. The Commission is determined that it will,” he added.
The growing interest of financial institutions in stablecoins could open new opportunities for payments, cross-border transactions and digital financial services in Nigeria. However, the extent to which these services gain mainstream acceptance will depend on regulatory clarity, consumer confidence and the ability of operators to demonstrate transparency and effective risk management.