By Adedapo Adesanya
The free fall of the Naira in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) continued on Wednesday, October 30.
At the midweek trading session, the Nigerian currency weakened further by 0.04 per cent or 72 Kobo against the United States Dollar at the official market to close at N1,631.17/$1, in contrast to the N1,630.45/$1 it was exchanged a day earlier.
This happened as FX supply decreased during the session by 46.9 per cent or $113.61 million to $128.98 million from the $242.59 million recorded in the preceding trading day.
However, the local currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling in the spot market on Wednesday by N18.57 to trade at N2,143.40/£1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N2,161.97/£1 and against the Euro, it improved its value at N18.90 to quote at N1,782.07/€1 versus N1,800.97/€1 it quoted on Tuesday.
A look at the parallel market showed that the Naira depreciated against the Dollar by N5 yesterday to close at N1,745/$! compared with the previous day’s value of N1,740/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, there was profit-taking after Bitcoin (BTC), the most valued coin, recently approached its record high, with many investors selling to lock in gains as 99.7 per cent of the circulating supply was in profit.
For instance, The Bhutan government, which holds over $900 million worth of bitcoin (BTC), moved a chunk of its holdings to exchanges sparking speculation it is on the verge of selling some of its stash in a move that may weigh on market prices.
The biggest drop was Solana (SOL) which recorded a 3.1 per cent decline to sell at $174.57, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 2.4 per cent to $0.1711, Litecoin (LTC) slid by 2.3 per cent to $71.61, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 1.7 per cent to $592.27, Ripple (XRP) dropped 0.8 per cent to trade at $0.5212, and Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 0.4 per cent to $0.3581.
On the flip side, Ethereum (ETH) jumped by 0.6 per cent to $2,655.43, BTC rose by 0.1 per cent to $72,316.89, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) appreciated by 0.06 per cent to settle at $1.00, while the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00.