Naira Nears N1,600/$1 at Official Market, Trades N1,720/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The free fall of the Naira against the United States Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) continued in the opening session of the week, selling at almost N1.600/$1.

On Monday, the country’s legal tender depreciated by 3.9 per cent or N60.58 against the greenback in the official market to quote at N1,598.54/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,537.96/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.

The domestic currency also suffered the same fate in the spot market against the Pound Sterling as it shed N53.57 to close at N1,931.04/£1 compared with last Friday’s value of N1,877.47/£1 and against the Euro, it depleted by N44.12 to finish at N1,652.12/€1, in contrast to the preceding session’s rate of N1,608.00/€1.

It was observed that the supply of foreign exchange (FX) to NAFEM was low, resulting into a low turnover, as the value of forex transactions went down by 21.0 per cent or $17.67 million to $66.43 million from $84.10 million.

Also, the value of the local currency declined against the Dollar in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window yesterday by N79 to settle at N1,707/$1 versus the previous trading session’s N1,628/$1.

Further, the Nigerian currency weakened against the American currency in the parallel market on Monday by N80 to sell at N1,720/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N1,640/$1.

Meanwhile, in the cryptocurrency market, a report said it may now be time to focus on Ethereum (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, as the coin is “probably the only other digital asset likely to get a spot ETF approval by the SEC.”

A broker firm, Bernstein, said there is about a 50 per cent chance of ETH spot ETF approval by May and near-certain probability of approval in the next 12 months, causing the coin to rise by 2.4 per cent to $2,958.29.

Dogecoin (DOGE) expanded by 4.5 per cent to $0.0895, Cardano (ADA) improved by 1.7 per cent to $0.6327, Ripple (XRP) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to $0.5663, Litecoin (LTC) jumped 1.0 per cent to $71.65, and Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 0.2 per cent to trade at $353.58.

On the flip side, Solana (SOL) recorded a 0.7 per cent slump to trade at $112.02, and Bitcoin (BTC) crashed by 0.6 per cent to $51,96.34, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 each.