Naira Extends Loss, Trades N1,605/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira lost 0.2 per cent or N3.31 against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Wednesday, March 6, closing at N1,605.74/$1 versus the previous day’s N1,602,43/$1 despite recent efforts to enforce stability in the market.

Also, the Nigerian Naira depreciated against the British Pound Sterling in the spot market by N40.80 in the midweek session to trade at N2,020.94/£1 compared with the previous day’s N1,980.14/£1 and against the Euro, it lost N32.26 to sell at N1.726.74/€1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1,694.48/€1.

The value of FX transactions recorded yesterday went down by 42.1 per cent or $122.80 million to $168.98 million from the $291.78 million transacted on Tuesday.

However, the local currency performed better in the black market against the American currency at midweek, appreciating by N10 to quote at N1,615/$1 versus Tuesday’s closing rate of N1,625/$1.

The cryptocurrency market turned green on Wednesday, with Ethereum (ETH) leading the charge in a hot pursuit to hit $4,000.

Despite Bitcoin (BTC) sell-off at a high of $69,000, ETH continued to show strength.

Apart from the uptrend in the wider crypto market fueled by increased inflows into spot BTC ETFs and the upcoming Bitcoin supply halving, other fundamental factors and on-chain metrics backed ETH’s uptrend, including reduced supply on exchanges and increased stake by investors on the second-most valued coin.

ETH saw its value go up by 10.7 per cent to $3,856.05, followed by Binance Coin (BNB), which jumped by 10.3 per cent to $427.23.

In addition, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 9.3 per cent to sell at $0.1572, Cardano (ADA) expanded by 9.1 per cent to trade at $0.728,  Solana (SOL) made a 6.8 per cent appreciation to settle at $130.95, and Litecoin (LTC) gained 5.9 per cent to quote at $84.59.

Further, BTC improved by 5.2 per cent to finish at $66,726.28, and Ripple (XRP) added 4.9 per cent to sell for $0.6123, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.