By Dipo Olowookere
On Friday, a few cryptocurrency exchange platforms like Kucoin, Bybit and others were in the news, especially on X, formerly known as Twitter, where they trended as a result of a sharp rise in the Naira to Dollar exchange rate.
Some persons were scared that the gains recorded recently by the Naira may begin to erode and began to call for the heads of these platforms like Binance, which was forced to stop its operations in Nigeria because of allegations of currency manipulation.
The company, Binance, and two of its employees have still not been cleared of the issues they have with the Nigerian government, which has arraigned them before a federal high court.
Yesterday, many claimed that some forex manipulators have rushed to the other crypto exchange apps to begin to fight back, blaming them for the recent fall in the value of the Naira in the parallel market.
Business Post reports that while the Nigerian Naira has witnessed a decline in its value against the US Dollar, not much has happened in the black market.
Though on Friday, the Naira lost 1.4 per cent or N15.91 to trade at N1,169.99/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N1.154.08/$1, and in the parallel market, it weakened by N30 against the Dollar to quote at N1,150/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s exchange rate of N1,120/$1.
As earlier stated, the decline in the local currency was blamed on the trading of cryptocurrencies by some people, but this is entirely not true.
“You claimed that the Naira’s fall has nothing to do with trading cryptocurrencies, but the Naira has appreciated from N1,900 to N950 to the Dollar since FG banned Binance.
“Oga NSA (National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu), what you did for Binance, do for Bybit, Kucoin, and OKX; they moved from Binance to these platforms,” one of the commenters wrote.
Another wrote, “Since Wednesday, the Dollar has started to increase again at BDC. Here is why, the emergency lovers of Binance are back speculating on other P2P (peer-to-peer). They will keep adding N50, N50 every day until they take it back to N2,500, which was their initial plan and recoup their loss. CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) act now.”
“On this issue, I reached out to a source in the relevant security agency and I was reliably informed that it has been flagged as imminent danger and it’s being looked into.
“I am told that they (security agency) may have to expend their hands to them, just like they did to Binance.
“I am told that the NSA (Nuhu Ribadu) has a keen interest in currency manipulation activities as a means of economic sabotage. This is all I am allowed to say for now,” another stated.
However, Business Post can say that the recent weakening of the Naira may have not been entirely caused by manipulators.
For those in the crypto landscape, who trade digital currencies with USDT, which is pegged at the Dollar rate, the recent rise in the value of the US currency against its Nigerian counterpart may have been caused by the Bitcoin halving, which happened on Friday.
Yesterday, Bitcoin (BTC), which is the world’s largest cryptocurrency, completed its fourth ever “halving,” a phenomenon that happens roughly every four years.
It is always anticipated that the value of this digital coin will increase after the halving and the quest to be part of it triggered the demand for USDT and the rise in the exchange rate at these cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
Crypto traders in Nigeria on these platforms had to cough out more Naira to buy the USDT, which was already in high demand because of the BTC halving.
Now that the process has ended, you should expect to see a downward trend in the price of USDT or Dollar in the P2P market in the coming days.
For further clarification, please hit the comment section below.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka