By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira depreciated against the Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market and the black market on Tuesday, December 13, but further appreciated at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment.
In the I&E window or the spot market, the Naira depreciated by 38 Kobo or 0.09 per cent against the greenback to close at N446.38/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s value of N446.00/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.
The local currency suffered this loss despite not coming under FX demand pressure during the trading session, as data showed that the value of forex trades at the official exchange rate segment went down by $5.93 million or 7.6 per cent to $72.15 million from $78.08 million on Monday.
Also, in the parallel market, the domestic currency lost N2 against the United States currency yesterday to settle at N742/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N740/$1, as traders complained of a slight shortage in the supply of FX in the financial system.
However, things changed in the P2P window, where the Nigerian Naira gained N9 against the US Dollar on Tuesday, as panic gripped investors in the sector after Binance froze the withdrawal of a stablecoin, USDC. Traders were willing to get out of the market quickly, and they offered their coins at any rate, leaving the Naira better as it traded at N756/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s rate of N765/$1.
In the interbank window, it was a mixed bag as the local currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N1.18 to trade at N548.17/£1 compared with Monday’s N546.99/£1, but against the Euro, it appreciated by N7.79 to close at N469.91/€1 versus N477.70/€1 a day earlier.
As for the digital currency market, there was a large bullish movement across the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post, with Binance Coin (BNB) recovering from earlier losses triggered by Binance suspending USDC withdrawals, rising by 2.1 per cent at the close of business to trade at $274.70.
Solana (SOL) gained 6.2 per cent to close at $13.93, Ethereum (ETH) improved by 3.6 per cent to $1,319.70, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 3.5 per cent to $17,771.91, Cardano (ADA) rose by 2.8 per cent to $0.3123, Ripple (XRP) increased by 2.2 per cent to trade at $0.3913, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 2.0 per cent to $78.10, and Dogecoin (DOGE) climbed higher by 1.7 per cent to sell at $0.0913.
However, Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.
