Ghana’s new crypto law gets its first test with an 11-company sandbox

Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the country’s capital markets regulator, has admitted 11 crypto companies into a regulatory sandbox as it begins rolling out a new law that formally legalises and regulates the virtual asset industry.

On Tuesday, the SEC announced that Africoin, Blu Penguin, Goldbod, Hanypay, Hyro Exchange GH Ltd, HSB Global, Koinkoin, Whitebits, Vaulta, Xchain, and Bsystem Ltd will test their products and services in a 12‑month pilot programme under regulatory oversight.

“The sandbox aims to support responsible innovation while strengthening investor protection, market integrity, and compliance with anti‑money laundering and counter‑terrorism financing standards,” the SEC said in a statement.

The sandbox is Ghana’s first operational step since it passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act (2025) into law in December 2025. The Act grants legal status to startups operating crypto businesses in the country and sets the framework for licencing exchanges, payment providers, and other digital asset operators.

Participating companies in the sandbox whose products are market‑ready and comply with all requirements may transition to full licences after six months, while others can continue testing for the rest of the year, according to the statement. The regulator says it will use lessons from the pilot to finalise guidelines and prepare a full licencing regime for virtual asset service providers.

Ghana’s move follows earlier consultations and a November draft policy paper detailing its approach to digital asset regulation, jointly overseen by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the SEC. With over 3 million crypto users, the government wants to bring clarity to the sector and position Ghana as a hub for regulated digital assets in Africa.

By contrast, Nigeria’s SEC has paused new admissions into its crypto sandbox while the country builds the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), which splits oversight between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), its tax regulator, for payment‑related virtual assets, and Nigeria’s SEC for crypto that behaves like securities. President Bola Tinubu has said Nigeria will not issue new crypto frameworks for now.

Ghana’s sandbox signals a different playbook: legalise the sector, test products under supervision, and use insights from the pilot to guide full licencing, highlighting the country’s ambition to lead in Africa’s regulated crypto market.