By Adedapo Adesanya
The local currency could not extend the gains it recorded on Thursday as it depreciated against the United States Dollar on Friday by N5 at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market.
News reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was supplying enough FX at the regulated channels caused demand for the hard currency on the streets to wane.
But yesterday, speculators took charge of the black market after the Naira initially traded at N490/$1 in the earlier hours trading. Their actions plunged the domestic currency to N498/$1 in the afternoon and at the close of transactions, according to the tracking done by Business Post.
At the preceding trading session, the local currency closed at N493/$1.
At the same segment, the domestic currency traded flat against the Pound Sterling at N710/£1 and further appreciated by N5 against the Euro to close at N595/€1 in contrast to N600/£1 it was sold at the market the day before.
At the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the local currency, however, depreciated on Friday by 50 kobo or 0.12 per cent to end the session at N411/$1 compared to N410.50/$1 of the prior session.
The Nigerian currency suffered the loss amidst a decline in the demand of FX by 45.9 per cent or $63.39 million as transactions worth $74.81 million were recorded at the session in contrast to the previous day’s $138.20 million.
At the interbank segment of the market, the Nigerian currency slightly appreciated against the greenback yesterday by one kobo to quote at N410.20/$1 versus N410.21/$1 it was sold at the preceding session.
Meanwhile, regulations continue to cause a massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency market as countries move to restrict access in order to guarantee the adoption and success of their own digital currencies.
Italy recently joined the fray as the agency responsible for regulating the Italian securities market raised concerns over the cryptocurrency market without proper regulation.
On Friday, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) went down by 8.4 per cent to trade at N17,822,970.08, Ethereum (ETH) lost 3.8 per cent to sell at N1,174,000.00, while Ripple (XRP) dropped 6.2 per cent to trade at N395.71.
But Litecoin (LTC) gained 1.8 per cent during the session to quote at N85,000.00, Tron (TRX) rose by 2.3 per cent to sell at N36.79, the Dash (DASH) climbed higher by 1.2 per cent to N82,000.00, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) appreciated by 0.9 per cent to sell for N514.68.
Dipo Olowookere