Quidax discontinues P2P buying and selling characteristic 5 months after launch

Quidax, a provisionally licenced Nigerian crypto startup, has discontinued its peer-to-peer (P2P) buying and selling characteristic 5 months after introducing the service, in line with an electronic mail despatched to prospects seen by TechCabal. The characteristic allowed customers to purchase and promote cryptocurrencies instantly with verified retailers on Quidax.

The choice underscores the tight regulatory path Nigeria’s crypto exchanges face as authorities push to convey a largely casual market beneath capital markets oversight. Quidax operates beneath the Nigerian Securities and Change Fee’s (SEC) Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), a closely-monitored sandbox framework fordigital asset operators. 

Startups admitted into the programme—Quidax and competitor Busha—have been anticipated to grow to be totally crypto-licenced by August 2025 after finishing the SEC’s stipulated one-year incubation interval. That transition has since stalled, with the regulator pausing the licencing course of to reassess its supervisory readiness.

Inside that surroundings, P2P buying and selling sits on the fringe of regulatory tolerance. In 2024, the SEC raised considerations about P2P crypto markets, citing alternate fee manipulations, opaque transaction flows, and the prevalence of platforms operated by outstanding international gamers, akin to Bybit and Bitget, which perform in a regulatory gray space in Nigeria. 

These considerations are rooted in oversight challenges: P2P transactions usually migrate into casual channels, making it more durable for regulators to observe exercise, defend traders, or detect abuse.

Quidax’s P2P providing was designed as a response to these considerations. Reasonably than permitting trades to spill off-platform, the alternate sought to formalise P2P transactions inside a managed surroundings. 

Solely verified customers may grow to be retailers, and eligibility required a completely registered account, Stage-3 know-your-customer verification, two-factor authentication, and not less than 7 days of energetic participation earlier than making use of by the platform. 

Functions have been reviewed by Quidax, with accepted retailers granted particular badges to differentiate them throughout the market.

Regardless of these safeguards, Quidax mentioned the choice to discontinue P2P buying and selling was strategic. In a discover to prospects, the corporate mentioned most customers most popular sooner buying and selling choices, akin to immediate swaps and order-book buying and selling, and that streamlining its providers would enable it to deal with options with larger demand. 

Following the P2P shutdown by Quidax, its market, adverts, chats, and escrow providers might be disabled, whereas different providers will proceed to function usually.

Because the SEC maintains shut oversight of provisionally licenced startups, Quidax’s choice to discontinue P2P buying and selling can be a direct sign of what the regulator is at the moment prepared and well-equipped to supervise and what it can’t. 

If cryptocurrencies are sometimes described as a Wild West trade, P2P markets flip up the flame on these dangers, intensifying considerations round casual settlement, restricted visibility, and investor safety. 

Whereas the regulator is probably going eager to realize deeper perception into P2P markets as guidelines evolve, the quick focus has been on actions that match extra neatly inside established capital-market constructions.

Nigeria’s regulatory posture for cryptocurrencies has grow to be clearer in latest months. On January 16, the SEC raised minimal capital necessities for capital market operators, together with digital asset service suppliers.

Underneath the Funding and Securities Act (2025), digital property, together with cryptocurrencies, are actually regulated as securities, putting them firmly beneath the SEC’s oversight and inside Nigeria’s capital markets framework. Whereas the SEC didn’t explicitly define necessities for P2P platforms in its newest capital thresholds, the classification regime provides steering. 

A P2P buying and selling platform working as a standalone service may very well be handled as a Digital Belongings Middleman (DAI), offering broking, routing, or facilitation providers between customers, akin to order routing, matchmaking, or agency-based P2P brokerage, with a brand new minimal capital requirement of ₦500 million ($352,000).

Alternatively, platforms that function a digital asset surroundings or protocol with out working a full alternate stack could fall beneath Digital Asset Platform Operators (DAPOs), which carry the identical ₦500 million ($352,000) threshold.

The place suppliers stack providers—significantly by combining P2P buying and selling with full alternate performance, custody, or escrow providers—the regulatory bar rises additional, probably requiring the next capital requirement. 

The SEC has but to situation a devoted regulatory framework for digital property in Nigeria, leaving operators to interpret how far innovation can prolong earlier than it runs forward of regulatory readability.

Quidax additionally introduced plans to delist 35 crypto tokens from its platform, together with meme cash akin to $TRUMP and E book of Meme; gaming-focused tokens like Axie Infinity; Sam Altman-backed Worldcoin; and World Liberty Monetary ($WLFI), a 2024-launched stablecoin related to Zachary Folkman, Chase Herro, Alex Witkoff, Zach Witkoff, and members of the Trump household.