Crypto Tax: Nigeria leads globally with 12.31% revenue potential —Chainalysis

NIGERIA has emerged as the country where taxable cryptocurrency activity could make the largest proportional contribution to government revenue globally, with crypto accounting for a potential 12.31 percent of public finances, according to a new report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

The report, Crypto Tax Report 2026, estimated that Nigeria recorded about $4.4 billion in taxable crypto activity in 2025, highlighting the growing importance of digital assets to the country’s tax base as the Federal Government moves to strengthen regulation and taxation of the sector.

Chainalysis said global on-chain taxable crypto activity reached $457 billion in 2025, comprising $127.1 billion in realised trading gains from centralised and decentralised exchanges, $81.7 billion in income from mining, staking, lending and gambling, and $248.7 billion in stablecoin payments.

North America accounted for the largest regional volume at $134.6 billion, followed by the European Union with $125.1 billion, while Africa and the Middle East jointly recorded $29.2 billion.

Nigeria’s $4.4 billion in taxable crypto activity was equivalent to more than 38 percent of its estimated $11.3 billion budget deficit in 2025, placing the country 12th among the top 15 countries globally in terms of crypto’s potential contribution towards closing fiscal deficits.

The report noted that Nigeria’s high ranking reflects both the scale of cryptocurrency adoption in the country and the significant volume of transactions conducted through channels that are not easily captured by international tax-reporting mechanisms.

A major challenge is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which is expected to facilitate international exchange of crypto transaction information from 2027.

According to Chainalysis, however, CARF can practically capture only about 14 percent of the $457 billion in taxable crypto activity because it primarily covers transactions routed through centralised exchanges, brokers and similar reporting platforms.

The remaining 86 percent, the report said, includes activities such as decentralised exchange transactions, self-custodial transfers and local peer-to-peer transactions.

The development is particularly significant for Nigeria, which has historically had a strong peer-to-peer cryptocurrency market. Chainalysis previously ranked Nigeria number one globally in P2P exchange volume in 2023.

The Nigerian government is now attempting to bring more of the cryptocurrency market into formal and supervised channels through new regulatory and tax measures.

Under the Nigeria Revenue Service’s administrative guidelines for taxing virtual assets, a 1.5 percent stamp duty applies to token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token conversions.

The guidelines also impose a 10 percent withholding tax on income from activities including staking rewards, mining, decentralised finance yields and airdrops when distributed or handled through licensed local platforms.

Peer-to-peer transactions are subject to different compliance requirements depending on how they are conducted. Platform-facilitated and escrow-based transactions can be subjected to withholding obligations, while off-platform wallet-to-wallet transactions largely depend on annual self-assessment.

Chainalysis said the Nigerian approach could help narrow the gap created by CARF by bringing crypto platforms operating domestically under direct regulatory and tax supervision.

However, the framework does not completely eliminate the visibility problem because genuinely off-platform transactions remain difficult for authorities to monitor automatically.

Nigeria’s position contrasts with Kenya, which ranked 13th globally, with crypto representing a potential 5.62 percent of government revenue. Kenya is pursuing a framework more closely aligned with CARF, while South Africa has integrated cryptocurrency into its existing income and capital gains tax regime.

The Chainalysis report described CARF as a significant step forward but argued that international reporting alone would not provide governments with complete visibility into crypto transactions.

For Nigeria, the report suggests that the challenge is to balance stronger tax collection and regulatory oversight with measures that encourage cryptocurrency businesses and users to remain within the formal financial system rather than move activity offshore or into informal channels