Naira Loses at I&E as Crypto Investors Smile Again

By Ahmed Rahma, Adedapo Adesanya

The local currency depreciated marginally by 8 kobo or 0.02 per cent against the US Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday, January 28, closing at N394.33/$1 in contrast to N394.25/$1 it ended at the segment on Wednesday.

This drop in the value of the domestic currency at the I&E window happened despite a decline in the demand for the greenback at the market segment yesterday.

At the close of the session, investors exchanged a total of $37.58 million, lower than the previous session’s $51.51 million by 27.0 per cent or $13.93 million.

Business Post reports that at the other segments of the market, there was an air of stability as the Naira retained its previously traded rates against the foreign currencies tracked at the windows.

At the interbank segment of the forex market, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold the Dollar to commercial banks on Thursday at the same official Naira/Dollar exchange rate of N379/$1.

The Nigerian currency also maintained stability against the American currency at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) window of the FX market yesterday at N395/$1.

Also, at the parallel market, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar remained unchanged on Thursday at N475/$1 just as the domestic currency traded flat against the British Pound Sterling and the Euro at N650/£1 and N580/€1 respectively.

A look at the activities at the cryptocurrency market yesterday showed that the price of all seven digital coins tracked went up after going through fire in the past few days.

The Bitcoin recovered 5.0 per cent during the session to sell for N15,856,476, the Dash (DASH) gained 6.5 per cent to trade at N49,842.53, the Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 1.6 per cent to trade at N634,000, while the Ripple (XRP) moved up by 0.8 per cent to sell at N125.95.

In addition, the Litecoin (LTC) grew by 2.9 per cent to settle at N63,516.93, the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) gained 0.2 per cent to sell for N487.99, while the Tron (TRX) rose by 2.9 per cent to trade at N14.40.