When Dangote Refinery began selling shares in September, Nigerians may just subscribe via dozens of banks and virtual funding apps for as low as ₦5,250 ($3.96) for ten gadgets. Buyers somewhere else in Africa had fewer choices. The $1.6 billion be offering was once registered handiest in Nigeria, leaving patrons in markets comparable to Kenya and Botswana matter to native securities laws and with restricted distribution.
The distance is helping provide an explanation for Roqqu’s subsequent wager: the Nigerian-founded cryptocurrency change needs to place native equities on blockchain networks and cause them to to be had to eligible traders out of the country. The startup already offers its users tokenised US stocks through Ondo Finance, a US-based corporate that problems blockchain tokens related to publicly traded stocks, and now needs to opposite that go with the flow.
Emmanuel Peter, Roqqu’s head of buying and selling and markets, sees the corporate because the distribution layer moderately than a alternative for the Nigerian Trade (NGX), the rustic’s inventory change. Present agents would purchase stocks, permitted custodians would cling them, and Roqqu would give you the infrastructure to factor corresponding blockchain tokens. Different crypto exchanges may just ultimately distribute the similar tokens, widening get entry to past Roqqu’s customers.
Roimot Ibitoye, the corporate’s leader compliance officer, stated the tokens could be matched by way of stocks held in custody, with common exams to forestall over-issuance. Roqqu informed TechCabal that it intends to distribute dividends, execute inventory splits, and supply different shareholder advantages.
Consistent with its executives, Roqqu is enticing with regulators, agents, custodians, and fund managers because it develops the proposed product. The corporate has no longer named its institutional companions or recognized which Nigerian shares it plans to tokenise first. Its executives be expecting Nigerian tokenised securities to transform to be had prior to 2027, despite the fact that the product’s regulatory standing and release stay unclear.
How a Nigerian proportion turns into a token
As an example, believe a Kenyan investor searching for publicity to one,000 stocks of a Nigerian financial institution. A conceivable construction would contain an permitted Nigerian dealer purchasing the stocks at the NGX and a regulated custodian conserving them in the course of the Central Securities Clearing Machine (CSCS). An issuer may just then create 1,000 corresponding tokens, assuming every token represented one proportion.
The investor may just purchase the ones tokens via an licensed platform, matter to the foundations governing their sale in Kenya. However Roqqu has no longer disclosed the overall preparations for connecting token holdings to enforceable pursuits within the underlying stocks, passing via shareholder advantages, or dealing with redemptions.
● TC DATA LAB / INTERACTIVE EXPLAINER
How 1,000 Nigerian stocks may just transform 1,000 tokens
A Kenyan investor needs publicity to a Nigerian financial institution.
Practice the conceivable path from stocks purchased at the
Nigerian Trade to blockchain tokens presented out of the country.
Faucet any step to peer what it does.
Conventional securities infrastructure
Proposed token distribution
Unresolved felony hyperlink
01 / THE UNDERLYING SHARES · NIGERIA
Actual financial institution stocks could be bought and held
the use of the present Nigerian securities machine.
↓
↓
02 / THE CORRESPONDING TOKENS · CROSS-BORDER
A proposed token construction may provide eligible
traders out of the country with publicity to these stocks.
↓
↓
Between custody and token issuance:
the enforceable felony hyperlink stays undisclosed
1,000
Underlying stocks held
↔
1,000
Corresponding tokens issued
EXPLORE THE PROCESS
STEP 1 OF 6
Nigerian Trade (NGX)
The Nigerian financial institution’s underlying stocks business on
the NGX. The hypothetical tokenisation procedure
starts with extraordinary indexed stocks, no longer with
a token created out of not anything.
1,000 tokens don’t mechanically imply direct
possession of one,000 stocks.
Roqqu has no longer disclosed the overall preparations
linking token holders to enforceable pursuits
within the underlying stocks, the passing via
of vote casting or dividend rights, or token redemptions.
Any sale to Kenyan traders would additionally need to
agree to appropriate Kenyan securities laws.
“If we’re pronouncing these days that we’re purchasing 100 million [Dangote] stocks, there must be some kind of verification to verify that we in fact have the ones 100 million stocks,” Ibitoye stated. “And if we’ve minted [100 million tokens], there’s meant to be some weekly attestation to be sure that the present place we are saying we now have, and what’s lately being minted and to be had, continues to be the similar factor.”
Get entry to isn’t the similar as possession
The economic argument has substance: tokenised equities in the USA have a disbursed worth of $3.32 billion, pushed by way of shares, according to the tracker RWA.xyz. Tokenisation has additionally enabled Africa-focused firms, comparable to Daya, Luno, Roqqu, and Blockchain.com, to supply customers publicity to US equities via blockchain-based tokens, extending international get entry to.
Tokenisation may just assist ease illiquidity in capital markets, however provided that wider get entry to brings extra patrons and dealers into the marketplace, the Ecu Central Financial institution (ECB) said in a paper in April.
For Nigeria, the chance is to widen overseas participation in its personal inventory marketplace. Overseas traders accounted for just 4.89% of fairness transactions at the NGX in August; that’s ₦62.03 billion ($46.63 million) of the ₦1.27 trillion ($955 million) traded within the month. For the reason that get started of 2026, overseas participation in Nigeria’s inventory change has remained at 10.43% of overall stocks traded. Tokenisation may just position native securities prior to traders who hardly use Nigerian brokerages.
But, Dangote’s providing exposes the restrict of that proposition. Nigerian traders already purchase stocks via cell apps and different cheap channels. A token, on its own, would no longer make an unregistered Nigerian safety felony to promote in Kenya or Europe. Its benefit must come from less expensive distribution, sooner agreement, or a compliant means to achieve traders that present agents can’t serve.
Tokenisation does no longer mechanically confer shareholder rights. The ones rights rely at the token’s felony construction and its connection to the underlying stocks.
In September, the USA Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) issued a five-year innovation exemption, permitting restricted buying and selling of tokenised indexed stocks on venues assembly its stipulations. Holders will have to retain the similar vote casting, dividend, and different rights as standard shareholders. Artificial merchandise that handiest observe costs don’t qualify, and indexed firms can object to third-party tokenisation.
Whilst tokenisation globally continues to be early, in markets like the USA, the place the regulator has given its transparent stance, a number of gamers, comparable to tokenisation infrastructure firms Securitize and Ondo Finance, are already energetic in the USA marketplace. Ondo has one after the other constructed a US custodial fashion that permits shareholder vote casting.
In essence, if Nigeria’s inventory marketplace will have to be tokenised, it nonetheless wishes the normal gamers, and in all probability the indexed firms themselves, to come back on board. Those firms would possibly need to be offering part of their stocks to tokenised distribution platforms to get entry to international capital.
The tougher section is the marketplace underneath the token
Nigeria’s Investments and Securities Act (2025) expressly brings virtual property underneath securities legislation, specifically blockchain-based variations of equities, which, whilst virtual tokens, constitute gadgets of possession specifically firms.
In January, the Nigerian SEC set a minimum capital of ₦1 billion ($703,000) for real-world asset tokenisation platforms and ₦2 billion ($1.5 million) for virtual asset exchanges. Its proposed laws in August reduced the requirement for tokenisation platforms to ₦500 million ($376,000), despite the fact that the regulator has yet to confirm whether or not that adjust has taken impact. NASD, the Nigerian change for unlisted securities, could also be developing a blockchain-based platform to factor and switch virtual securities.
None of those steps quantities to blanket permission for a crypto change to create tradable variations of indexed stocks. Roqqu nonetheless wishes a construction that reconciles blockchain balances with the CSCS and clarifies who legally owns a proportion.
Fractional token holders nonetheless want enforceable custody and nominee preparations to workout vote casting rights and get better property if an middleman fails, which is why the corporate is operating with conventional asset control, brokerage, and custodial companions.
Liquidity creates any other complication. If the tokens business outdoor NGX hours, traders may just purchase and promote them whilst the underlying proportion marketplace is closed.
Say a proportion remaining traded at ₦100 ($0.075), as an example. If an investor needs to promote their token at night time however the one purchaser gives ₦90 ($0.068), the investor will have to both settle for much less or wait. The percentage backing the token does no longer make sure that a tokenised inventory investor can money out straight away at ₦100 ($0.075). Roqqu has no longer disclosed who would supply that liquidity or how redemptions would paintings.
The corporate stated it’s concentrated on the chance to make Nigerian securities more uncomplicated to carry and business with out weakening the rights hooked up to them. However the problem is proving that blockchain provides traders, liquidity, and enforceable possession, whilst attracting passion from establishments able to making it occur.
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