By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Naira plunged against the US Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) arm of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday, July 14, as pressure returned on forex operations after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) unified the exchange rates and put in place several policies to boost liquidity.
At the official market, the Naira weakened by N21.41 or 7.72 per cent to close at N803.90/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s value of N782.49/$1, amid low trading activities.
Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the value of FX transactions went down by $40.48 million or 46.33 per cent to $46.90 million from the $87.38 million achieved in the previous day.
In the same vein, the domestic currency depreciated against the Dollar by N3 yesterday to sell for N813/$1 versus Thursday’s exchange rate of N810/$1.
However, in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) window, the local currency appreciated against the American currency during the session by N2 to quote at N817/$1, in contrast to N819/$1 at the preceding session.
In the official market, the local currency gained N10.70 against the Pound Sterling to trade at N1,011.56/£1 compared with the previous day’s N1,022.26/£1 and against the Euro, it firmed up by N11.22 to end the session at N863.44/€1 versus N874.66/€1.
As for the digital currency market, the bears dominated on Friday, as most of the coins tracked by Business Post depreciated as caution returned in the wake of the emergence of reports that Binance has laid off roughly 1,000 workers in recent weeks and that layoffs could continue.
Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $31,000 on the news, with expectations that the exchange could eventually let go of up to one-third of its workforce, which had numbered around 8,000 prior to the start of layoffs.
The tokens hit fresh highs for the year on Thursday after a US judge ruled that Ripple’s sales of XRP tokens via public exchanges did not constitute a security offering and that the token was not a security.
Yesterday, BTC lost 3.6 per cent to close at $30,315.07, as its rival, Ethereum (ETH), went down by 3.9 per cent to $1,932.91, with Cardano (ADA) declining by 9.1 per cent to $0.3286.
Further, Ripple (XRP) shed 8.9 per cent to trade at $0.7235, Litecoin (LTC) slipped by 6.5 per cent to $94.85, Binance Coin (BNB) slumped by 4.3 per cent to $248.97, Solana (SOL) recorded a 4.0 per cent loss to trade at $27.57, and Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 3.2 per cent to sell at $0.0685, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.
Modupe Gbadeyanka