Naira Falls at Black Market, I&E as Crypto Crashes Again

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar and other foreign currencies at the parallel market and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday, May 21.

At the black market, the local currency lost N1 against the US currency as it was sold for N485/$1 in contrast to N484/$1 it traded at the previous session.

Also, the Nigerian currency depreciated by N5 against the Pound Sterling at the unregulated FX market segment to close at N685/£1 compared with N680/£1 it was sold on Thursday.

In the same vein, the domestic currency declined against the Euro on Friday by N2 to sell at N587/€1 in contrast to N585/€1 of the preceding session.

Business Post reports that the Naira had a bad day at the I&E window as the FX shortage worsened during the trading day.

The Nigerian currency depreciated by 0.17 per cent or 69 kobo against its American counterpart to wrap up the day at N412/$1 versus N411.31/$1 of the earlier session.

The decline occurred despite a decline in the turnover recorded yesterday at the I&E segment as transactions worth $89.72 million were executed in contrast to the $120.08 million achieved at the preceding day, signifying a decline by $30.36 million or 25.3 per cent.

Bears Ravage Cryptocurrency Market Again

In what would be a very unforgettable week for traders of digital currencies, there was a huge plunge again on Friday after recoveries were made in the previous session.

As seen across the cryptocurrencies monitored by Business Post on the trading platform, Quidax, all the seven benchmarked coins pointed southwards.

This was because China again doubled down on efforts to prevent speculative and financial risks by cracking down on mining and trading of the largest cryptocurrency.

China’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, chaired by Vice Premier Liu He, singled out Bitcoin as the asset it needs to regulate more. As a result, the price of the world’s largest and most popular cryptocurrency declined by 11.6 per cent to trade at N17,903,159.79.

Ethereum (ETH) went down by 21.7 per cent to sell at N1,090,678.98, Ripple (XRP) lost 17.7 per cent to trade at N499.60, while Dash (DASH) dropped 17.4 per cent to sell at N91,102.02.