By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar by 0.04 per cent or 17 kobo at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Thursday, April 7.
During the trading session, forex end-users exchanged the Nigerian currency for the American currency at N416.67/$1 as against the N416.50/$1 it was exchanged in the previous session.
One of the obvious reasons for the weakening of the local currency at the session was the forex scarcity the country has been battling with for a long time despite the performance of crude oil at the market.
The nation has not been able to take full advantage of the rising price of the commodity to grow its FX reserves and shore up the value of the Naira from the sale of black gold, its main source of foreign earnings.
However, at the spot market, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Pound Sterling was in favour of the former as it appreciated by 72 kobo to trade at N544.68/£1 compared to the previously traded rate of N545.41/£1, and against the Euro, the domestic currency gained N3.74 to sell at N454.35/€1 versus the previous day’s N458.09/€1.
At the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) window, the value of the Naira against the greenback remained unchanged yesterday at N574/$1.
As for the digital currency market, it was mixed as Dash (DASH) lost 1.8 per cent to sell for N67,598.99, Dogecoin (DOGE) declined by 1.6 per cent to trade N87.25, while Cardano (ADA) dropped 1.1 per cent to quote at N654.17.
Further, Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 0.8 per cent to close at N26,331,994.95, Solana (SOL) declined by 0.6 per cent to N71,310.17 as Ripple (XRP) also went down by 0.6 per cent to trade at N471.78., while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) retreated by 0.1 per cent to N589.43.
However, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a 2.1 per cent gain to trade at N181,570.25, followed by Litecoin (LTC) which appreciated by 0.6 per cent to sell at N68,625.42, and Ethereum (ETH), which rose by 0.2 per cent to sell at N1,838,143.00.
