The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted the three companies Approval-in-Principle (AIP) status under its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), a structured sandbox launched in June 2024 that allows digital asset service providers to operate under regulatory supervision before they can qualify for full Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) licences. AIP status is not a licence; it is a conditional green light that requires firms to keep satisfying the SEC's operational and compliance requirements throughout the programme.

"An Approval-in-Principle confirms that an entity has satisfied the Commission's admission requirements for the Programme," the SEC stated in language reported by Nairametrics in July 2026. "It is not a final licence and remains conditional on the entity's continued compliance with all applicable regulatory, operational, and supervisory obligations."

A Sandbox That Has Grown Fast

The August admission brings ARIP's active participant count to 12 firms, following earlier graduations, up from 9 just weeks earlier. The July 2026 cohort alone added Luno, KuCoin Nigeria, GetEquity, Bitbarter, Koinkoin, Wrapped CBDC, Trovotech, Blockvault Custodian, and GIGX to the programme.

Busha and Quidax were the first firms to graduate from ARIP, completing the process in August 2024, and are no longer counted among the active participants. Entry requirements are substantial: exchanges and custodians must demonstrate shareholders' funds of up to 2 billion naira (approximately $1.5 million, though this conversion is approximate and exchange-rate dependent), maintain a fidelity bond covering at least 25 percent of those funds, and run a physical office inside Nigeria.

Who Got In

Yellow Card is the most recognisable name in the August batch. Once a consumer-facing crypto exchange, the company restructured in December 2025 and now focuses exclusively on B2B stablecoin infrastructure, providing payment rails for banks and fintechs rather than serving retail customers directly. It raised $40 million in a round led by Snapchat Ventures (the investment vehicle associated with Snap Inc., whose exact registered entity name could not be independently verified at time of publication), Standard Chartered Ventures, Polychain Capital, and Blockchain Capital, and holds regulatory authorisations in Switzerland, Poland, Canada, South Africa, and Botswana. The company received seven nominations at the 2026 Morgans GRC Financial Crime Awards, a concrete third-party signal of its compliance positioning. The company has leaned into its compliance posture as a product feature: "Being regulated is the feature," the firm wrote in a 2026 post on its regulatory strategy.

Yellow Card had previously characterised its Nigerian status as licensed, including on its own blog, which described an active VASP licence in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa predating this admission. Its ARIP AIP represents the first formally documented status issued by the SEC itself, formalising a relationship with Nigerian regulators that had previously lacked official SEC documentation.

Blockchain Africa, the entity admitted under the name BC Access Nigeria Limited, is a subsidiary of Blockchain, the global crypto wallet and exchange operator. It is unconfirmed whether BC Access Nigeria Limited is a distinct entity from any prior Blockchain presence in Nigeria; that question may warrant review of company registry records or direct comment from the firm. Its entry into Nigeria's supervised framework marks a significant step for an internationally recognised brand.

Pisi Payment Solutions operates the YDPay platform, which offers crypto-to-fiat conversion, cross-border transfers, instant swaps, and a corporate trading vault for high-volume clients. Pisi holds a Money Services Business licence in Canada and had been pursuing SEC recognition. The company plans to launch a YDPay card programme and expand its enterprise API offerings. According to TechCabal's reporting, neither Pisi nor BC Access Nigeria Limited had independently published statements confirming their ARIP admission as of publication.

Dual Sandboxes, Coordinated Oversight

The SEC's ARIP does not operate in isolation. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) opened applications for Cohort 2 of its own regulatory sandbox on August 12, 2026 (closing August 31), with a dedicated track for VASPs covering stablecoins, custody, digital wallets, exchanges, fiat-to-crypto services, and payment and settlement systems.

"The programme enables the CBN and innovators to engage constructively throughout the testing process, supporting regulatory learning while encouraging responsible innovation," said Sidi-Ali Hakama, CBN Acting Director of Corporate Communications.

Both sandboxes operate under a framework established by President Bola Tinubu's Virtual Assets Coordination Executive Order, signed July 17, 2026. That order created the Virtual Asset Council (VARC), chaired by the CBN, to align oversight across the SEC, Nigeria Revenue Service, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Office of the National Security Adviser. The division of labour is clear: securities-classified digital assets fall to the SEC; payment, custody, and settlement infrastructure answers to the CBN. The arrangement is backed by the Investments and Securities Act 2025, which formally classifies digital assets as securities under Nigerian capital markets law.

The current framework represents a dramatic policy reversal. The CBN effectively banned banks from servicing crypto businesses via circular in February 2021; the 2025 and 2026 regulatory architecture represents a near-complete reversal of that position within five years. The Nigerian Senate has also advanced a dedicated VASP Regulation Bill in 2026, signalling further formalisation ahead and reinforcing the direction of travel established by the executive order and ISA 2025.

Why This Matters Beyond Nigeria

Nigeria recorded $92.1 billion in crypto inflows between July 2024 and June 2025, according to Chainalysis as reported by secondary sources, making it one of the highest-volume informal crypto markets in the world.

Formalising even a portion of that activity has compounding effects: it signals to global firms that Nigeria is a viable jurisdiction, it creates consumer recourse mechanisms that unregistered platforms cannot offer, and it generates a regulatory template that neighbouring markets are already watching. Ghana admitted 11 VASPs to its own SEC sandbox in March 2026. Kenya and South Africa have active licensing frameworks. Nigeria's multi-agency VARC model could become a reference architecture for coordinated crypto oversight across the continent.

For builders in the region, the capital thresholds in ARIP create a high entry bar. Implementing rules under ISA 2025 also impose a 30 percent corporate income tax on VASP profits, a significant cost consideration for all 12 ARIP firms as they build business cases for full licensure. Smaller Nigerian startups face real crowding-out risk as better-funded international entrants formalise their local presence. The CBN's Cohort 2 VASP track, open through August 31, represents a parallel pathway for payment-focused startups that fall outside the SEC's securities perimeter, and smaller operators should assess that route before the window closes.