By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira appreciated against the United States Dollar in the official market and the and the peer-to-peer (P2P) windows of the foreign exchange (FX) market but depreciated in the parallel market on Wednesday, February 21 as several scare tactics to ease the weakening local currency continues.
In the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), the domestic currency gained 0.6 per cent or N8.66 on the greenback to close at N1,542.58/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,551.24/$1.
However, the Naira maintained stability against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the spot market in the midweek session at N2,023.64/£1 and N1,729.36/€1, respectively.
This was sustained as the supply of forex significantly improved yesterday by 46.7 per cent or $54.82 million to $172.14 million from the $117.32 million recorded in the previous session.
Also, in the P2P market segment, the Nigerian currency improved its value by N42 against the Dollar yesterday to sell at N1,760/$1 compared with Tuesday’s closing value of N1,802/$1.
But in the black market, the Nigerian currency suffered another loss, N70, against its American counterpart to settle at N1,885/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s price of N1,815/$1.
The formation of a task force mounted strategic attacks on Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators across several locations in the country to force the hand of the market.
For traders in the P2P market, the shock came as many users had issues accessing the websites of cryptocurrency firms such as Binance, OctaFX, Coinbase, and others, confirming fears of a widespread report that it plans to ban the services of these exchanges.
This new restraint on crypto websites is aimed at slowing currency speculation activities in the country.
The most popular of the exchanges, Binance, said it committed to a market-driven, fraud-free, and manipulation-free platform for its users.
“As industry leaders, we are working hand in hand with local authorities, lawmakers, and regulators to ensure we act on non-compliance,” it said.
A look at the digital currency market revealed that Cardano (ADA) went down by 4.6 per cent at midweek to trade at $0.583, as Solana (SOL) declined by 3.9 per cent to $102.73.
Ripple (XRP) lost 2.8 per cent to trade at $0.5422, Ethereum (ETH) shrank by 2.7 per cent to $2,922.16, Dogecoin (DOGE) crumbled by 2.1 per cent to $0.0836, Litecoin (LTC) fell by 1.3 per cent to $68.26, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 1.2 per cent to sell at $51,426.28, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) weakened by 0.03 per cent to $0.9998.
Conversely, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 5.7 per cent to sell at $374.94, and Binance USD (BUSD) remained unchanged at $1.00.
Dipo Olowookere 
Modupe Gbadeyanka