Nigeria's revenue authority issued rules that place exchanges and peer-to-peer marketplaces at the center of virtual-asset tax collection. Platforms must withhold, report and remit payments. For some transactions, tax deducted at source and stamp duty are to be transferred in the originating token, while value-added tax is paid in the settlement currency. The framework includes a 1% withholding on taxable disposals, 10% on staking, mining, airdrop and DeFi income, and 1.5% stamp duty on token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token transfers. Stablecoin sales are exempt from the 1% withholding.

Payment in tokens changes the state's role. The tax authority receives not only information about crypto but the asset itself, creating custody, valuation, volatility, liquidity and disposal questions. If a tax is withheld in an illiquid token, its value at transfer may differ substantially from the amount eventually realized.

For platforms, this becomes a major infrastructure obligation. They must determine the taxable base, distinguish a sale from a transfer, classify the income, withhold the correct asset and credit the payment against the user's final liability. Poor implementation could freeze peer-to-peer liquidity or push activity toward informal channels.

The second-order effect may favor regulated exchanges because complex tax collection creates a compliance barrier that larger licensed operators can absorb more easily. It also concentrates more data and assets in a few intermediaries. Watch the technical remittance format, valuation rules, treatment of non-custodial wallets and the procedure for returning excess withholding. The policy will be judged less by its headline rates than by whether ordinary users can understand and reconcile what platforms collect on their behalf.