By Adedapo Adesanya
The value of the Naira to the Dollar crashed by N3 or 0.53 per cent at the peer-to-peer (P2P) market segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday.
At the market window, the exchange rate of the Nigerian currency to its American counterpart closed at N574/$1 compared with N571/$1 it traded at the midweek trading day.
The P2P market is a marketplace where buyers and sellers exchange their currencies through different means, including bank transfers and others.
The rate is mostly affected by the price of cryptocurrencies and yesterday after inflation figures from the United States were released, the market confirmed that it was evident that the interest rate will increase next month.
This affected the prices of digital coins as they fell, with Ripple (XRP) losing 5.8 per cent to trade at N483.94, Ethereum (ETH) sliding by 5.1 per cent to N1,764,841.66 and Litecoin (LTC) declining by 4.1 per cent to sell at N76,033.22.
Furthermore, Dogecoin (DOGE) retreated by 3.5 per cent to N89.21, Cardano (ADA) pointed south by 2.9 per cent to trade at N660.73, Tron (TRX) made a 2.5 per cent loss to sell for N38.90, Bitcoin (BTC) lost 1.3 per cent to trade at N24,809,779.78, Dash (DASH) also slid by 1.3 per cent to N76,033.22, Binance Coin (BNB) dropped 1.0 per cent to quote at N173,107.30, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) decreased by 0.7 per cent to sell for N572.78.
Meanwhile, at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the local currency lost 67 kobo or 0.16 per cent against the United States Dollar to sell for N416.67/$1 in contrast to N416.00/$1 of the previous session.
The Naira closed weaker despite the market segment witnessing a lower turnover as the value of trades went down by 35.8 per cent or $61.19 million to $109.75 million from the previous day’s turnover of $170.94 million, according to data obtained by Business Post.
It was observed that the Naira also depreciated against the British Pound Sterling at the session by N1.31 to trade at N566.73/£1 versus Wednesday’s closing rate of N565.42/£1 and lost 67 kobo against the Euro to settle at N477.42/€1 compared with N476.75/€1 it traded on Wednesday.