Naira Sells N1,501/$1 at NAFEM as Bitcoin, Ethereum Fall at Crypto Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated against the United States Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) by 0.53 per cent or N8.01 on Friday, February 21.

Data showed that the exchange rate closed the trading session at N1,501.03/$1, in contrast to the N1,509.04/$1 it was exchanged on Thursday.

In the same vein, the Nigerian currency improved its value against the Pound Sterling during the trading day by N4.47 to sell for N1,896.62/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,569.16/£1 and gained N5.57 on the Euro at the official market to settle at N1,569.16/€1 versus the N1,574.83/€1 it was traded a day earlier.

As for the parallel market, the Naira maintained stability against the greenback on Friday to remain unchanged at N1,510/$1.

The recovery achieved by the domestic currency came as investors digested a slew of data that points to possible calm in the wider Nigerian market.  

This week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held all key monetary rates intact across the board, with the headline monetary policy rate (MPR) left unchanged at 27.50 per cent after all members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to keep rates steady, stating that it was too early to start considering rate cuts despite slowing inflation.

This came after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that Nigeria’s headline inflation was now 24.48 per cent in January 2025 after a rebase compared with the 34.80 per cent recorded in December 2024.

In the cryptocurrency market, most tokens fell after a popular cryptocurrency exchange, Bybit, experienced $1.46 billion worth of suspicious outflows.

The wallet in question appears to have sent 401,346 ETH ($1.1 billion) as well as several other iterations of staked Ethereum (stETH) to a fresh wallet, which is now liquidating mETH and stETH on decentralized exchanges.

According to reports, the wallet has sold over $200 million worth of stETH so far.

During the session, Cardano slumped by 4.2 per cent to trade at $0.7642, Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 3.9 per cent to $127.68, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 3.7 per cent to $0.2439, Ripple (XRP) dropped 2.9 per cent to finish at $2.58, Ethereum (ETH) tumbled by 2.6 per cent to $2,685.36, Solana (SOL) crashed by 2.3 per cent to $171.85, Bitcoin (BTC) lost 1.9 per cent to quote at $97,764.23, and Binance Coin (BNB) declined by 0.1 per cent to $654.97, while the the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) both traded flat at $1.00 each.