Nigeria’s Central Bank Requires Offshore Stablecoin Issuers to License Locally

The significance here is jurisdictional reach: Nigeria is asserting that serving its users triggers local obligations, regardless of where an issuer is based. That shifts compliance cost and legal exposure onto offshore issuers rather than local intermediaries, and the capital floor plus the extra reserve buffer effectively narrows the field to well-capitalised operators. The open question is enforcement — whether offshore issuers without a local entity exit Nigerian access or restructure, and whether the reserve add-on is verified or self-reported.