By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira suffered significant losses against the United States Dollar on Monday in the different segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market ahead of the expected hike in the benchmark interest rate on Tuesday.
On Monday, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) commenced, and the outcome of the gathering is expected today. It is the first after Mr Godwin Emefiele was suspended as the central bank chief last month.
In the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the Nigerian currency lost 1.83 per cent or N19.22 against the greenback to close at N792.04/$1, in contrast to last Friday’s value of N772.82/$1.
This happened as the value of forex transactions went down by 38.2 per cent or $30.53 million to $49.46 million from $79.99 million.
In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) arm of the market, the local currency shed N12 against its American counterpart yesterday to sell at N861/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N849/$1.
In the black market, the Naira depreciated against the Dollar on Monday by N5 to sell at N865/$1 versus the previous trading day’s value of N860/$1.
However, in the official market, the domestic currency maintained stability against the Pound Sterling and the Euro during the session at N990.52/£1 and N856.92/€1, respectively.
In the cryptocurrency market, tokens fell at the start of the week as investors awaited a major US Federal Reserve policy decision and digested concerns around Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange which was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month and is at the centre of a Department of Justice investigation that’s likely to end with a consent decree or settlement.
Bitcoin (BTC) slumped by 2.3 per cent to $29,127.02, Ethereum (ETH) went down by 1.0 per cent to sell at $1,852.31, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 5.0 per cent slide to trade at $0.6949, and Solana (SOL) dropped 4.4 per cent to quote at $23.32.
Further, Litecoin (LTC) declined by 3.5 per cent to $89.11, Cardano (ADA) shrank by 2.8 per cent to $0.3047, and Binance Coin (BNB) slumped by 1.2 per cent to sell for $238.22, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) closed flat at $1.00 each.
But Dogecoin (DOGE) gained 9.3 per cent to close at $0.0778 following plans by Twitter to change into a super app after taking its first step by incorporating “X” into its identity. This could see the integration of a payment system into the app, as the founder of the app, Mr Elon Musk, is a proponent of the meme coin.
