By Adedapo Adesanya
The foreign exchange (FX) crisis in Nigeria took its toll on the Naira in the currency market yesterday, as it depreciated against the United States Dollar at the various segments of the market.
Business Post reports that the Nigerian currency performed badly in the Investors and Exporters (I&E), Peer-to-Peer (P2P), and the parallel market segments of the forex market on Wednesday.
It shed N50.77 or 6.83 per cent against the greenback during the session to settle at N793.70/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s rate of N742.93/$1, despite the value of forex trades going down.
Data from FMDQ Securities Exchange put the day’s turnover at $87.19 million, 47.6 per cent or $69.10 million lower than the $156.29 million recorded on Tuesday.
In the P2P forex window, the domestic currency depreciated against its American counterpart during the session by N21.50 to quote at N864.00/$1 compared with the previous day’s exchange rate of N842.50/$1.
In the black market, the Naira lost N15 against the US Dollar in the midweek session to finish at N845/$1 compared with the previous trading day’s value of N830/$1.
Also, in the spot market, the local currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N7.98 to settle at N1,019.05/£1 versus Tuesday’s N1,011.07/£1 and declined by N16.71 against the Euro to sell at N884.89.26/€1 versus N868.18/€1.
The cryptocurrency market saw Ripple (XRP) record an upward movement following the ruling that secondary sales of XRP do not constitute investment contracts. As a result, a lot of exchanges that had previously delisted the cryptocurrency listed it again, prompting an influx of interest.
It led the gainers as it jumped 4.9 per cent to $0.8349, followed by Cardano (ADA), which recorded a 2.6 per cent increase to trade at $0.3275, while Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 1.1 per cent rise to trade at $0.0703 and Solana (SOL) appreciated by 0.7 per cent to $26.46.
On the flip side, Bitcoin (BTC) slumped by 0.3 per cent to $30,017.08, Ethereum (ETH) declined by 0.7 per cent to $1,900.07, Litecoin (LTC) slid by 1.4 per cent to $92.28, Binance Coin (BNB) shed 0.5 per cent to quote at $242.06, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) retained parity at $1.00 each.
