Naira Gains 0.02% at I&E as Crypto Market Tumbles

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (FX) market by 0.02 per cent or 10 kobo on Tuesday, October 12.

According to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, the local currency was sold yesterday for N414.30/$1 in contrast to N414.40/$1 it was sold at the preceding trading day.

One of the factors responsible for the strengthening of the domestic currency was the sufficient supply of forex to meet the requests of customers, though the value of transactions was lower than the previous day.

It was observed that at the second trading session of the week, a turnover of $153.39 million was recorded as against the $184.31 million recorded at the preceding session.

This indicated that the value of transactions at the I&E window yesterday went down by $30.92 million or 16.8 per cent and the FX traders were able to satisfy the demands of their customers during the day.

At the interbank segment of the market, the Nigerian currency maintained stability against its American counterpart as the exchange rate remained unchanged at N410.87/$1 at the close of business.

Meanwhile, investments at the cryptocurrency market were bearish on Tuesday as all the 10 digital coins tracked by Business Post headed south as more traders chose to take profit after the recent gains at the crypto market.

Litecoin (LTC) recorded the highest loss as it went down by 7.7 per cent to sell for N96,213.17, while the second most popular crypto, Ethereum (ETH), fell by 7.1 per cent to trade at N1,877,778.10, with Ripple (XRP) losing 6.9 per cent to trade at N619.40 and Dash (DASH) crashing by 4.9 per cent to sell for N102,153.49.

Bitcoin (BTC) went down yesterday by 3.5 per cent to sell at N31,347,329.78, Tron (TRX) lost 1.6 per cent to trade at N55.09, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) depreciated by 1.4 per cent to quote at N564.35, Cardano (ADA) dropped 0.7 per cent to N1,237.65, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 0.6 per cent to trade at N179,058.84, while Dogecoin (DOGE) was down by 0.1 per cent to sell for N134.38.