Naira Gains 9.6% at NAFEM as Bitcoin Hits $42,000

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Naira opened the week stronger on the American Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday, December 4 as pressure eased amid continued foreign exchange (FX) liquidity squeeze in the market.

In the official market, the Naira appreciated against the greenback by 9.6 per cent or N89.42 to settle at N837.77/$1 compared with last Friday’s closing price of N927.19/$1.

Also, the Naira gained N172.53 against the Pound Sterling in the NAFEM segment of the market during the session to close at N1,031.57/£1 versus last Friday’s rate of N1,204.10/£1 and against the Euro, it improved by N151.13 to trade at N884.93/€1 versus N1,036.06/€1.

The value of forex supply into the spot market went down by 32.9 per cent or N36.21 million yesterday to $73.93 million from the $110.14 million reported in the preceding trading session.

However, in the peer-to-peer (P2P) segment of the FX market, the value of the local currency weakened against the US Dollar during the session by N10 to close at N1,158/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N1,148/$1.

It was a similar story in the parallel market, where the domestic currency lost N5 against the American currency to trade at N1,170/$1, in contrast to the previous trading session’s rate of N1,165/$1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) rose on Monday, briefly surpassing $42,000 to reach a 20-month high, in a new surge of momentum fueled by US interest rate cut expectations and traders betting that American regulators will soon approve exchange-traded spot bitcoin funds.

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency rose to $42,162, its highest since April 2022, seemingly casting off the gloom that had settled over crypto markets following the collapse of FTX and other crypto-business failures last year.

It later chalked up 5.7 per cent to close at $41,843.73 and Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 3.9 per cent to sell at $2,244.84.

Further, Dogecoin (DOGE) improved by 4.3 per cent to sell at $0.0881, Cardano (ADA) grew by 3.4 per cent to trade at $0.4059, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 2.1  per cent to $71.31, and Binance Coin (BNB) added 1.1 per cent to sell for $230.08.

However, Solana (SOL) slumped by 3.7 per cent to $60.99, and Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.5 per cent loss to trade at $0.6229, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT)  and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00, respectively.