By Adedapo Adesanya
Fresh pressure mounted on the Nigerian Naira in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, January 9, causing its value against the United States Dollar to weaken by 27.2 per cent or N232.94 to quote at N1,089.51/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N856.57/$1.
The local currency suffered a significant loss during the session as forex traders could not meet the strong demand of their customers, though the value of transactions rose by 63.3 per cent or $37.79 million to $97.45 million from the $59.66 million achieved a day earlier.
On Monday, the FX market was bullish after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it had cleared some backlogs owed in forward contracts as well as to foreign airlines.
This development still kept the exchange rate of the Naira and the other two key currencies stronger in the official market yesterday, as it gained N26.44 on the Pound Sterling to close at N1,086.90/£1 versus the preceding day’s N1,113.34/£1 while the domestic currency improved its value by N24.13 against the Euro to settle at N936.52/€1 compared with Monday’s rate of N960.65/€1.
Also, in the parallel market, the Naira was strengthened against the greenback on Tuesday by N5 to quote at N1,240/$1 compared with the previous trading day’s value of N1,245/$1.
However, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) section of the market, the Nigerian currency lost N6 against its American counterpart yesterday to trade at N1,230/$1, in contrast to the N1,224/$1 it was exchanged in the preceding session.
As for the digital currency market, most of the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post on Tuesday closed in the green territory after the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s official social media account on X (formerly Twitter) posted a notice in the evening falsely claiming it had approved listings for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The controversial post has since been deleted.
Moments later, SEC Chair, Mr Gary Gensler said in a post on his account that the agency’s account was “compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted.”
The illegitimate post sent from the SEC’s account said, “Today, the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities. The approved Bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection.”
The market took this development as a positive sign that approval may still be in the works, with Bitcoin (BTC) jumping by 6.8 per cent to $47,158.42, while the second most valued coin, Ethereum (ETH), added 4.8 per cent to sell for $2,346.85.
In addition, Cardano (ADA) appreciated by 5.4 per cent to close at $0.5388, Solana (SOL) recorded a 5.2 per cent jump to trade at $98.04, Litecoin (LTC) grew by 3.6 per cent to finish at $67.47, Ripple (XRP) moved up by 2.5 per cent to $0.5789, Dogecoin (DOGE) increased its value by 1.9 per cent to sell at $0.0812, and Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 0.4 per cent to trade at $306.93, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at the close of transactions at $1.00, respectively.
Modupe Gbadeyanka