Nigeria's markets regulators have published a set of regulations for digital assets, signalling Africa's most populous country is trying to find a middle ground between a ban on digital assets and their unregulated use.
Nigeria's central bank banned banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating transactions in digital currency last year.
The country's young tech-savvy population has eagerly adopted cryptocurrencies, for example using peer-to- peer trading offered by the exchanges to avoid the financial sector ban.
Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission has published the New Rules on Issuance, Offering Platforms and Custody of Digital Assets on its website.
The 54-sided document lays out registration requirements for digital assets offerings and custodians and classifies the assets as securities regulated by the SEC.
A bank spokeswoman didn't answer calls to his mobile phone.
The SEC said that no digital assets exchange would be allowed to facilitate trading of assets unless it received a no objection from the commission.
A digital assets exchange will have to pay 30 million naira $72,289 as a registration fee, among other fees.
Digital currencies, unlike cryptocurrencies, are backed and controlled by the central bank.