The Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN) has called for a 12-month review of Nigeria’s new virtual asset tax rules, saying the government should measure the policy by its impact on market activity and compliance.
The association said the review should be built into the guidelines issued by the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and should assess whether the tax regime is keeping crypto trading within licensed and visible channels.
Mela Claude Ake, SiBAN president said the government should track indicators such as the number of registered Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), trading volumes on licensed exchanges and the extent to which activity remains within the formal market.
The call comes as Nigeria seeks to expand non-oil revenue collection, with the NRS targeting N40.7 trillion in revenue in 2026.
SiBAN argues that a tax system that generates higher initial collections but pushes trading into informal peer-to-peer (P2P) channels could ultimately weaken the tax base and reduce regulatory visibility.
‘The point is not to tax virtual assets lightly as a matter of principle; it is to tax the right event, once, at a rate capable of withstanding competition from the informal market,’ Ake said.
The association is particularly concerned about the treatment of transactions under the current model, which it says can combine stamp duty, withholding tax and VAT on a single trade regardless of whether the trader makes a profit.
SiBAN said this could create a significant tax burden before investors have realised any gain. On a N1 million transaction, the association estimates that the combined burden could reach N64,250.
Ake said taxing transaction value rather than realised gains could have unintended consequences for Nigeria’s formal crypto market.
‘Taxing capital before any profit exists is not merely unfair, it is self-defeating,’ he said, arguing that high transaction costs could encourage users to bypass regulated exchanges.
SiBAN wants Nigeria to move toward a realised-gains model that taxes net profits after allowing traders to recover their costs. It also wants losses to be offset against gains and internal wallet transfers to be excluded from taxation.
Where the government insists on a transaction-based levy, the association proposed a single charge of between 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent on one side of a trade, replacing what it described as multiple layers of transaction taxes.
The association cited Kenya’s experience with a three percent tax on gross digital-asset transfers as a warning for Nigerian policymakers. It said the tax was eventually scrapped after concerns that activity was moving toward unregistered channels.
SiBAN also pointed to India’s treatment of crypto losses as another policy lesson, arguing that restrictions on loss offsets can reduce liquidity on domestic platforms.
For Nigeria, the association said the test of the new tax regime should therefore go beyond how much money it collects in its first year.
A 12-month review would give policymakers a chance to determine whether the rules are increasing formalisation, improving compliance and strengthening domestic exchanges, or instead pushing users toward less visible P2P markets, it posited.
The review should also allow the NRS to adjust tax rates and treatment based on actual market behaviour, rather than locking the industry into rules that could discourage participation.
SiBAN said its position was not against taxing virtual assets but aimed at ensuring that taxation supports, rather than undermines, the development of a regulated digital-asset market in Nigeria.