Naira in Big Trouble, Falls to N495/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The attempt by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to discourage Nigerians from seeking forex at the parallel market seems to have backfired as the battering of the local currency against the Dollar continued on Thursday.

In the latest round of beatings suffered by the domestic currency, it depreciated by N8 to close at N495/$1 compared with N487/$1 it closed on Wednesday.

Also, the domestic currency shed N6 against the Pound yesterday to close at N635/£1 as against N629/£1 of the previous day and depreciated against the Euro by N5 to close at N580/€ versus N575/€1.

Business Post understands that this is coming as a huge demand for the greenback could not be met at other segments, thereby expanding the gap.

At the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the exchange rate against the greenback remained flat at N393.25/$1 despite the 303.6 per cent or $158.16 million rise in the demand for FX to $210.25 million from the previous day’s $52.09 million.

At the interbank window of the forex market, the Naira also traded flat against the US Dollar at N379/$1 and at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment, the Naira closed flat against the American currency at N386/$1.

Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market on Thursday, the digital tokens went to the slaughter after recent weeks of appreciation and according to market analysts, it was because of a price correction from crypto traders moving larger volumes of bitcoin to exchanges — where they can be more easily sold at a better price.

During trading yesterday, the popular Bitcoin (BTC) saw its value drop by 10.4 per cent to sell for N8,351,447.64. The Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 16.6 per cent to N34,380.60, Dash (DASH) lost 12.1 per cent to trade at N44,949.99, while Ripple (XRP) went down by 14.8 per cent to sell at N266.80.

In the same vein, Ethereum (ETH) recorded a 8.6 per cent slide to sell N259,366.32, Tron (TRX) sold for N14.6 after moving down by 12.8 per cent, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) made a 0.2 per cent fall to close at N494.00.