Naira Remains N1,346/$ at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira slightly appreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, October 30, by 65 Kobo or 0.05 per cent to close at N1,346.26/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N1,346.91/$1.

It also gained N9.49 against the Pound Sterling in the official market during the session to end at N1,803.58/£1 compared with the previous session’s N1,794.09/£1, but depreciated against the Euro by N4.66 to sell at N1,503.23/€1 against the preceding session’s N1,498.57/€1.

The Naira gained N11 against the Dollar at the GTBank FX desk yesterday to close at N1,354/$1 versus Thursday’s N1,365/$1, and traded flat at the parallel market at N1,378/$1.

Interbank FX turnover jumped by 8.9 per cent to $58.850 billion from $54.051 billion, while the number of FX deals dropped to 72 deals from 74 deals.

This indicates moderation after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervened in the market with around $500 million following demand pressure in the last few days.

Market participants are expecting the central bank to further intervene in the FX market ahead of the holiday season, while investors sell off securities to lock in profits.

In the cryptocurrency market, prices were mostly down as the market still reeled from a Binance attack that saw over $6 billion lost to a hacker.

Binance’s investigation into the record $6.3 billion hack uncovered additional security breaches beyond an initially suspected compromised employee laptop, co-chief executive at the exchange, Mr Richard Teng said on Friday.

He also announced a Sunday target to restore withdrawals.

In a video statement on X, Mr Teng said the attackers used a self-destruct mechanism to erase evidence and exploited Ethereum’s EIP-7702 account-delegation feature to take control of a hot wallet without going through Binance’s normal approval procedures.

TRON (TRX) lost 4.1 per cent to trade at $0.3206, Solana (SOL) crashed by 1.4 per cent to $95.57, Bitcoin (BTC) depreciated by 0.9 per cent to $77,254.48, Binance Coin (BNB) also declined by 0.9 per cent to $698.97, Dogecoin (DOGE) shrank by 0.6 per cent to $0.0751, and Ripple (XRP) slumped by 0.4 per cent to $1.24.

On the flip side, Ethereum (ETH) rose by 0.7 per cent to $2,242.27, and Cardano (ADA) grew by 0.5 per cent to $0.1931, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.