Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025 · Circular 2026/21 ¶7.2, ¶10
What is not a disposal
Holding, moving between your own wallets, staking, minting, wrapping — none of these are taxed.
Who this lands on: Anyone holding virtual assets.
Simply holding is not a taxable event. A token that has doubled on paper is not taxed until you dispose of it.
Moving tokens between wallets you own and control is not a disposal, as long as beneficial ownership does not change. That relief does not stretch to a move involving a company, partnership or trust, or any change of owner.
Locking tokens into a staking or validation protocol is not a disposal — though the rewards it pays out are income.
Minting an NFT is not a disposal. Tax arises on the first sale.
Tokenising a real-world asset is a change in the form of ownership, not a sale, where the beneficial owner is unchanged.
Borrowing against your tokens is a liability, not income.
Wrapping a token, or depositing into a DeFi protocol for a receipt token, is not a disposal where you keep beneficial ownership, the token represents the same asset and you receive nothing else. The original cost base and holding period carry across, and unwrapping is not a disposal either (¶10).
Selling, swapping, spending or otherwise parting with a wrapped or receipt token is a disposal like any other.