Nigeria’s revenue authority has issued detailed crypto tax rules requiring exchanges and P2P marketplace operators to collect, report and remit taxes arising from virtual asset transactions.

The Nigeria Revenue Service published the Guidelines on Taxation of Virtual Assets on July 31. The agency announced the framework publicly on Aug. 3, saying it explains how the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 and Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025 apply to digital assets.

One of the most unusual requirements concerns the form of payment. Income tax deducted at source and stamp duty must be remitted to the NRS in the token used for the underlying transaction. VAT must instead be paid in the currency used for payment, according to the guidelines.

This reputation is not without foundation. Cramer’s prediction history is marked by notable flip flops and high profile misses.

In December 2017, right as bitcoin was climbing toward its first run at $20,000, he called it “monopoly money” and said buying it was pure gambling and not investing. In September 2020, he supposedly bought the cryptocurrency around $10,000 after a podcast conversation with investor Anthony Pompliano, and later added more that year.

The reversals kept coming. In June 2021, he sold most of his bitcoin holdings, citing China’s crackdown on crypto mining. Prices went on to hit lifetime highs near $70,000 by November 2021.

In January 2024, he warned of a “nasty” bitcoin selloff following the debut of spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. While prices did drop slightly to $40,000, the decline was anything but nasty and by March, prices had rallied to $70,000.

Cramer changed his view in January 2025, calling bitcoin “a great thing to have in portfolio” and urging investors to own the token themselves instead of seeking an indirect exposure through bitcoin-holding firm Strategy (MSTR).

Last month, he swung bearish, calling bitcoin and gold “bad money” that’s being liquidated in favor of high-growth names like SpaceX, Apple and Nvidia. Now, in August 2026, he’s planning a full exit.

Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), a special administrative region in southern Bhutan, awarded 3iQ Corp. a mandate to manage part of its bitcoin BTC$63,521.60 treasury, the firms said in an email.

GMC declined to disclose the size of the mandate to CoinDesk.

How the money will be run is the new information. GMC told CoinDesk it selected the Toronto-based company to generate long-term returns through a low-risk, market-neutral investment approach, meaning the reserve is to be deployed for yield rather than simply held.

A market-neutral strategy covers a range of possibilities, including basis trades and lending. Such strategies usually yield at least 5% annually in the general market. GMC did not say whether any specific approach has been selected.

In December, when Bhutan’s king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, pledged up to 10,000 BTC, then worth about $1 billion, the allocation was called a long-term national asset for the city’s development, with collateralization, treasury strategies or holding all listed as options still under consideration.

The mandate’s size matters because the pledge behind it has been in question for months.

Bitcoin was little-changed the past 24 hours after Washington and Tokyo intervened together to support the yen, a rare move that revived concerns about the cheap Japanese funding behind leveraged bets across global markets.

Japan and the United States confirmed they bought yen on Friday after the currency weakened to 163.73 per dollar. Bank of Japan data suggest Tokyo may have spent as much as $36.6 billion, while the size of the U.S. contribution has not yet been disclosed.

The yen rebounded to 157.57 on Friday and held near 157 on Monday.

Crypto traders watch the yen because of the carry trade. Investors borrow in Japan, where the policy rate is 1%, and move the money into assets offering higher returns.

A sudden rise in the yen can force those traders to close positions and sell other assets to repay the loans.

That risk did not reach bitcoin immediately. BTC traded near $63,600 on Monday, up about 1.8% over 24 hours and little changed over seven days.

Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, said the intervention is better viewed as a check on disorderly trading than the start of a lasting yen recovery.

The interest-rate gap still favours the dollar, with the Federal Reserve’s benchmark range at 3.50% to 3.75% against the Bank of Japan’s 1%. Without a smaller gap or investors unwinding yen-funded trades on their own, repeated intervention may only slow the currency’s decline.

Nigeria’s tax authority has issued detailed guidance for how crypto platforms and peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces must collect, report, and remit taxes on virtual-asset activity—introducing rules that include paying some tax withholdings using digital tokens themselves.

In its Guidelines on Taxation of Virtual Assets, the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) outlines how income tax withholding, stamp duty, and value-added tax (VAT) should be handled under existing law. The document is likely to reshape compliance workflows for exchanges and P2P operators operating in Nigeria, while also clarifying what taxpayers can expect when trading, transferring, or earning yield on crypto assets.

Key takeaways

• The NRS says income tax withheld at source and stamp duty must be remitted in the originating token used for the transaction, while VAT must be remitted in the payment currency.
• Platforms and P2P marketplaces must withhold 1% of proceeds from taxable disposals of crypto assets, security tokens, and specified NFTs.
• A 10% withholding rate applies to staking, mining, airdrops, and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity under the guidelines.
• For token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token movements, the rules reference a 1.5% stamp duty.
• Stablecoin sales are exempt from the 1% withholding tax, and withheld amounts are treated as advance payments credited against final income tax liability.

How the NRS expects crypto taxes to be remitted

The practical centerpiece of Nigeria’s new guidance is its instruction on settlement currency for taxes. According to the NRS, income tax deducted at source and stamp duty “shall be remitted to the Service in the originating token of the transaction.” In other words, if a withholding-triggering event results in the taxpayer receiving or paying a specific token, that same token is expected to be used when remitting certain taxes to the NRS.

The NRS draws a sharper line for VAT, stating that value-added tax must be remitted in the currency used for the payment. This separation matters operationally: companies processing Nigerian users’ activity will need systems that can identify the “originating token” for token-based remittance while also ensuring VAT settlement follows the actual payment currency.

The guidelines also position exchanges and P2P marketplaces as key intermediaries in the withholding, reporting, and remittance process, meaning compliance duties do not fall solely on end users.

Withholding rates for trading, yield, and DeFi-linked activity

The NRS sets different rates depending on the type of virtual-asset event. Under the guidelines, platforms must withhold:

• 1% of proceeds from taxable disposals of crypto assets, security tokens, and applicable NFTs.
• 10% withholding on staking, mining, airdrops, and decentralized finance arrangements.
• 1.5% stamp duty on token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token transfers.

The withheld amounts are described as advance payments that will be credited against each taxpayer’s eventual income tax bill. That structure is important for users because it implies the withholding is not intended to be the final tax amount in every case—rather, it should reconcile to the taxpayer’s final liability under Nigeria’s income tax rules.

The NRS also specifies that individuals are taxed using progressive rates, while companies other than small companies face a 30% rate. Additionally, the guidelines note that stablecoin sales are exempt from the 1% withholding tax, reducing one potentially broad category of taxable disposals for which exchanges would otherwise deduct at source.

Nigeria’s wider virtual asset tax architecture

This guidance did not appear in isolation. The NRS framework follows an executive step under which Nigeria established a Virtual Asset Council, chaired by the central bank, with the NRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) serving as vice chairs. Earlier in the process, the presidency said the NRS would release policy to implement Nigeria’s tax laws for virtual assets.

The legal baseline for the framework is anchored in Nigeria’s 2025 tax legislation. The NRS points to the Nigeria Tax Act and the Nigeria Tax Administration Act of 2025, which took effect on Jan. 1. These laws treat digital assets as chargeable assets and require virtual asset service providers to report transaction details, including customers’ names, contact information, and Tax Identification Numbers.

That reporting requirement is likely to become a central compliance burden for operators, especially for businesses that previously offered onboarding that did not prioritize Nigeria-specific tax identifiers.

From a flat capital gains tax to detailed withholding mechanics

Nigeria’s approach to crypto taxation has evolved in stages. The Finance Act 2023 previously introduced an explicit tax treatment for gains from crypto disposals, imposing a flat 10% capital gains tax, according to earlier coverage. The current 2025 framework replaces that earlier treatment and—critically for market operators—lays out how valuation, withholding, remittance, and reconciliation should work under the updated rules.

While the guidelines do not merely restate a headline tax rate, their emphasis on specific withholding categories suggests a shift toward a more standardized collection model. For exchanges and P2P platforms, the compliance implication is straightforward: the company’s role in withholding and remitting taxes is now codified, and systems will need to track taxable events across trading, transfers, and certain types of on-chain or programmatic earnings.

For users, the change is less about whether crypto is taxable and more about how taxes get collected during routine activity—potentially meaning taxes are deducted before a final tax calculation is completed.

Nigeria’s guidelines raise immediate questions that operators will need to address as they implement them, including how “originating token” remittance will be handled in complex routing scenarios and how platforms will operationalize stablecoin exemptions while applying token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token duties. The next watchpoint is how exchanges and P2P providers translate the NRS instructions into real-world tax reporting and settlement processes for users.