Naira Depreciates at Official Market as Crypto Market Suffers

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Tuesday by 60 Kobo or 0.13 per cent to settle at N446.10/$1 compared with Monday’s rate of N445.50/$1.

This happened despite a 64.8 per cent or $133.59 million decline in the value of FX transactions completed in the official market yesterday.

The value of forex trades executed during the day at the spot market stood at $72.69 million, in contrast to the $206.25 million carried out in the preceding session, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

However, in the black market, the domestic currency appreciated against the greenback on Tuesday by N70 to quote at N800/$1 compared with N870/$1 it was traded on Monday.

Also, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment, the local currency gained N30 against the American currency to settle at N850/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N880/$1.

At the interbank segment, the Naira closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro on Tuesday at N504.45/£1 and N439.74/£1, respectively.

As for the digital currency market, the bears were in control as the market was thrown into turmoil as traders were jittery over news that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, was planning to acquire FTX, its top rival, following a public feud between the two CEOs of the companies.

Solana (SOL) lost 18.3 per cent to trade at $20.85, Dogecoin (DOGE) went south by 13.1 per cent to $0.0866, Ethereum (ETH) declined by 3.3 per cent to $1,303.46, Ripple (XRP) slumped by 9.4 per cent to trade at $0.388, Bitcoin (BTC) crashed by 6.0 per cent to $18,262.52, Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 5.9 per cent to $59.19, and Cardano (ADA) dipped by 2.4 per cent to $0.3691.

However, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 0.4 per cent to trade at $317.59, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.