Naira Appreciates to N756/$1 at Official Market, N865/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira finished the first trading day of the new week on a strong foot as it appreciated against the United States Dollar in the currency market on Monday.

The domestic currency gained N18.82 or 2.43 per cent against the greenback at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market yesterday to quote at N756.94/$1 compared with last Friday’s N775.76/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.

The value of transactions recorded during the session increased by 24.0 per cent or $13.03 million to $67.21 million from the $54.18 million achieved in the preceding trading session.

Also, in the black market, the Naira gained N2 against the Dollar yesterday to sell at N865/$1, in contrast to the previous trading session’s rate of N867/$1.

In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window of the forex market, the value of the Nigerian currency against its American counterpart remained unchanged on Monday at N871/$1.

In the official market, the domestic currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling yesterday by N19.40 to close at N977.70/£1 versus last Friday’s value of N997.16/£1 and improved its value by N14.26 against the Euro to trade at N838.69/€1 compared with the preceding session’s N852.95/€1.

In a related development, Bitcoin (BTC) traded below $29,000 on Monday as the crypto market absorbed the latest industry blow, a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Richard Schueler, known online as Richard Heart, and his projects Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX, and wrestled with the fallout from an exploit of stablecoin exchange Curve.

Bitcoin (BTC) slumped by 1.7 per cent to sell at $28,900.17, ETH dropped 2.0 per cent to trade at $1,827.22, Solana (SOL) depreciated by 4.2 per cent to $23.46, Cardano (ADA) fell by 3.6 per cent to $0.303, and Litecoin (LTC) shed 3.4 per cent to trade at $90.16.

Further, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 2.9 per cent slide to quote at $0.0762, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 2.1 per cent fall to close at $0.6917, and Binance Coin (BNB) declined by 1.2 per cent to $240.38, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.