By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Thursday, August 22.
The value of the domestic currency shrank by 2.74 per cent or N42.27 against the greenback yesterday to sell for N1,586.11/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s N1,543.84/$1.
In the same vein, the local currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling during the session by N38.53 to close at N2,087.11/£1 compared with the midweek’s N2,048.58/£1 and suffered a loss of N23.83 against the Euro to trade at N1,770.74/€1 versus Wednesday’s closing price of N1,746.91/€1.
The value of FX transactions recorded in the official market on Thursday went down by 30.0 per cent or $51.59 million to $120.20 million from the preceding session’s $171. 79 million.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has in recent weeks moved to stabilise the local currency by injecting FX into the market but it has taken a step back this week with no confirmation of any sales made, putting pressure on the Nigerian currency.
In the parallel market, the Naira lost N5 against the US Dollar yesterday to quote at N1,615/$1 compared with the preceding day’s rate of N1,610/$1.
As for the digital currency market, the majority of the tokens tracked by this newspaper ended in the positive territory, with Cardano (ADA) growing by 4.3 per cent to $0.3813.
Solana (SOL) recorded a 2.0 per cent jump to trade at $145.65, Ethereum (ETH) rose by 1.9 per cent to close at $2,682.90, Dogecoin (DOGE) appreciated by 1.8 per cent to sell at $0.1075, Litecoin (LTC) improved its value by 1.4 per cent to finish at $64.34, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 1.4 per cent to trade at $581.02, and Bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.7 per cent to settle at $61,239.84.
In the same vein, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.1 per cent increase to trade at $0.6008, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.