Naira Slumps to N770/$1 at P2P, N750/$1 at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated again at the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) and the parallel market segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market but remained flat at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window on Monday, June 5.

Some analysts attributed the downfall of the Naira value in the P2P and the black market to the reaction of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to talks of the devaluation of the local currency last week.

In the P2P market, buyers and sellers exchanged the Nigerian currency with the Dollar at an average of N770/$1 compared with the last Friday’s closing value of N764/$1, indicating a decline of N6.

In the parallel market, the domestic currency lost N3 against the Dollar yesterday to close at N750/$1, in contrast to the previous trading day’s rate of N747/$1.

But in the official market, the exchange rate of the Naira to the US Dollar remained unchanged at N464.67/$1, as the value of forex transactions weakened by 21.7 per cent or $21.42 million to $77.48 million from $98.90 million.

In the interbank segment, the Naira depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N3.48 to sell at N578.76/£1 versus last Friday’s N575.28/£1 and slumped against the Euro by N3.69 to quote at N497.39/€1 versus N493.70/€1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market witnessed a sharp fall on the news that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a suit against Binance in a US district court for unregistered securities operations.

This lawsuit could delay the recovery in Bitcoin (BTC) and most major altcoins, as traders could prefer to remain on the sidelines for a few days until some clarity emerges.

As a result, Binance Coin (BNB), the associated coin of the exchange, fell by 7.7 per cent to sell at $277.53, BTC slumped by 3.7 per cent to $25,787.83, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 2.7 per cent to trade at $1,817.45, and Solana (SOL) crashed by 7.1 per cent to $19.98.

Further, Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 7.0 per cent to $0.0666, Cardano (ADA) slid by 5.9 per cent to trade at $0.3521, Litecoin (LTC) shrank by 5.5 per cent to $87.64, and Ripple (XRP) lost 4.5 per cent to close at $0.5097, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.