the nigerian securities and exchange commission sec is currently reviewing applications for digital exchanges on a trial basis in an effort to expand market participation in africas most populous country where the central bank has imposed restrictions on cryptocurrency trading bloomberg quoted abdulkadir abbas head of securities and investment services at the sec as saying that the commission is exploring the possibility of allowing tokenized coin offerings on licensed digital exchanges that are supported by assets such as equity debt and property but not cryptocurrencies we always like to start as a regulator with a very simple clear proposal before we go into the complex ones he said this initiative could attract techsavvy individuals in nigeria—a country with over 200 million people and 43 of the population under 14 years old—to local assets like equities which have been neglected for years nigeria has the highest volume of cryptocurrency transactions on peertopeer trading platforms outside the us as per data from paxful an exchange that ceased operations in april also read what are the odds bitcoin journeys to 1m why a former coinbase exec is optimistic other countries including singapore are experimenting with similar tokens last year singapore initiated project guardian a pilot program led by dbs bank ltd dbsdy jpmorgan chase  co jpm and marketnode pte which investigates potential applications of asset tokenization and involves the creation of a permissioned liquidity pool consisting of tokenized bonds and deposits while nigerias sec plans to register fintech companies as digital subbrokers crowdfunding intermediaries roboadvisors fund managers and tokenized coin issuers it will not register cryptocurrency exchanges until an agreement on standards is reached with the central bank which in 2021 directed commercial banks not to facilitate such transactions abbas explained that prospective digital exchanges will undergo a year of regulatory incubation during which they will offer limited services under sec supervision to assess their operational patterns and suitability for providing services in nigeria by the 10th month we should be able to make a determination whether to register the firm extend the incubation period or even ask the firm to stop operation he added read next blockchain goes mainstream mastercards new standards to change the game