Naira Crashes to N776.90/$1 at Official Market, N788/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

It was a very bad day for the Nigerian Naira at the official market and the black market on Friday as it further depreciated against the American Dollar.

Though its value also weakened in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market during the session, it was marginal compared with the heavy beating it suffered in the two other forex windows.

In the Investors and Exporters (I&E) category, the Naira lost N14.27 or 1.87 per cent against the US Dollar on the final trading session of the week to sell at N776.90/$1 compared with the preceding day’s rate of N762.63/$1.

It closed lower despite not coming under heavy forex demand pressure, as data obtained by Business Post showed that the value of transactions was $73.42 million, 25.5 per cent or $25.18 million lower than the $98.60 million quoted on Thursday.

In the same vein, the domestic currency depreciated against its United States counterpart on Friday by N8 to quote at N788/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s price of N780/$1.

In the P2P arm of the market, the local currency lost 58 Kobo against the greenback yesterday to sell for N788.88/$1 compared with the previous day’s exchange rate of N788.30/$1.

A look at the value of the Naira to the Pound Sterling at the spot market showed that it further crashed by N4.10 to close at N966.34/£1 versus N962.24/£1 and against the Euro, it shed N3.94 to finish at N826.82/€1 versus N822.88/€1.

The cryptocurrency market was bullish during the session amid a flurry of fresh industry turmoil and stress in global financial markets.

The predictions that the US Federal Reserve could raise borrowing costs this month increased after stronger-than-expected private payrolls data, which affected how investors view risk assets.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose 0.1 per cent to $30,232.06, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 0.2 per cent to $1,862.25, Solana (SOL) gained 6.4 per cent to sell at $21.46, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 0.7 per cent to $235.70, Cardano (ADA) improved by 0.6 per cent to $0.2833, and  Litecoin (LTC) grew by 0.1 per cent to $97.04.

On the flip side, Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 0.6 per cent to $0.0652, and Ripple (XRP) lost 0.4 per cent to close at $0.4669, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) remained flat $1.00 each.