By Adedapo Adesanya
The foreign exchange (forex) crisis in Nigeria is again affecting the performance of the Naira with its peers at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment. This is because after losing N1.33 against the United States Dollar on Wednesday, it further depreciated by N1.17 or 0.28 per cent on Thursday to close at N419.50/$1 in contrast to the N418.33/$1 it was traded at the previous session.
The inability of the country to take advantage of the rising prices of crude oil to earn more foreign earnings is contributing to the FX supply crunch in Nigeria. With forex traders unable to meet the demand of their customers, the local currency is under pressure and this will have a spiral effect on the black market.
At the black market yesterday, Business Post gathered that the Naira was exchanged with the Dollar at N590/$1, while at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the exchange rate of the Nigerian currency with its American counterpart remained flat at N586/$1.
However, the Naira appreciated against the Pound Sterling at the official market on Thursday by 92 kobo to trade at N542.36/£1 versus the preceding session’s N543.28/£1, while it lost N2.46 against the Euro to close the day at N453.03/€1 compared with N450.57/€1 of the previous day.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency assets were largely confined to the bearish territory on Thursday with all of the 10 benchmarked coins by Business Post recording losses as US Federal Reserves move to cushion against inflation.
Litecoin (LTC) went down by 3.9 per cent to sell at N68,139.00, Solana (SOL) lost 3.5 per cent as it sold for N61,777.80, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 2.9 per cent to trade at N582.40, Binance Coin (BNB) pointed southwards by 2.7 per cent to sell at N245,904.16, while Dogecoin (DOGE) slid by 2.5 per cent to N92.46.
Further, Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 2.4 per cent to N440.30, Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 2.3 per cent to quote at N25,406,400, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 2.2 per cent to sell at N1,805,297, Dash (DASH) declined by 2.2 per cent to trade at N62,515.09, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) lost 0.1 per cent to quote at N599.96.
Modupe Gbadeyanka