Nigeria's NASD unveils a regulated digital securities platform
The OTC exchange's NDSP, built on Blockstation rails, is to issue, trade, clear and settle tokenized securities, with a first public offering slated for early September.
What happened
NASD OTC Securities Exchange introduced the NASD Digital Securities Platform, reported in the Nigerian press on 29 and 30 July as the country's first regulated venue for issuing and trading tokenized securities, with an inaugural public offering scheduled for early September. The platform runs on blockchain infrastructure from Blockstation Inc, with TK Tech Africa, and is to cover issuance, trading, clearing and settlement. 'The NDSP introduces greater transparency, more efficient issuance and trading processes, and modern market infrastructure designed to support the next generation of regulated capital markets,' said Chinwendu Ekeh, NASD's acting managing director and chief executive, in a statement carried by both Punch and Vanguard. NASD's own page for the platform lists one offering: Ark Real Estate Fund C, a 500,000,000 naira target raise with a 50,000 naira minimum, marked coming soon.
Why it matters
Nigeria has spent two years building the legal scaffolding for this, from the Investments and Securities Act 2025 bringing digital assets into securities law to the SEC's licensing of exchanges. A regulated OTC exchange carrying tokenized issuance through to settlement is the market-infrastructure step that turns scaffolding into a venue, and it puts Nigeria alongside Kenya's gazetted regime in the region's move from rules to plumbing. An OTC market is also the sensible place to try it: the securities traded there are already outside the main board, so a new issuance rail can be tested without touching the exchange most Nigerian savings sit on.
What is not settled
The exchange and its own website disagree. Punch and Vanguard both report the platform is now live; NASD's page for it is written in the future tense and says coming soon. The two reports carry the same sentence from the same executive, so they are two publications of one statement rather than two independent accounts of a launch. No regulator statement underpinning the platform could be read: Bloomberg reported on 4 August that Nigeria had approved tokenized assets, but that article is closed to automated readers and no SEC Nigeria statement was found. Whether the September offering proceeds on schedule is untested.
Institutions in this story
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NASD OTC Securities Exchange
Exchange
Introduced the NASD Digital Securities Platform in late July, on Blockstation infrastructure with TK Tech Africa, to carry tokenized securities from issuance through settlement. Its own page for the platform still says coming soon.
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Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria
Regulator
Regulates NASD as a self-regulatory organisation, and is the body whose approval the platform's regulated status would rest on. No statement from it about the platform could be read.
On the record
Nigeria's NASD introduces a digital securities platform
NASD OTC Securities Exchange introduced the NASD Digital Securities Platform, built on Blockstation infrastructure with TK Tech Africa to carry tokenized securities from issuance through trading, clearing and settlement, with a first public offering slated for early September 2026. Punch and Vanguard reported it live on 29 and 30 July; the exchange's own page for it says coming soon.