Naira Trades N1,597/$1 at Official Market, N1,600/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the currency market on Monday by 0.3 per cent or N5.41 to close at N1,597.34/$1 compared with last Friday’s value of N1,602.75/$1.

It also improved its value against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by N50.97 to wrap the session at N2,003/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N2,054.06/£1 and gained N41.89 against the Euro to close at N1,712.69/€1 versus N1,754.58/€1.

It was observed that the supply of forex, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, slightly waned by 2.1 per cent or $5.1 million to $243.65 million from $248.75 million.

In the parallel market, the domestic currency appreciated by N5 against the American currency during the session to settle at N1,600/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s rate of N1,605/$1.

Naira’s good fortune is happening amid current tussle with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, which the Nigerian government accused of enabling users to manipulate the country’s FX rate.

A Federal High Court in Abuja court ordered the crypto exchange on Monday to hand over the data of thousands of Nigerian users to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Now, the embattled exchange must turn over customer’s data to the anti-graft agency just as two expats remain under arrest over standing their ground against a demand from the Nigerian government.

In the cryptocurrency market, benchmarked tokens recorded a large retreat as traders took profit following recent runs led by Dogecoin (DOGE) which recorded a value depreciation of 6.2 per cent to sell at $0.1443.

Binance Coin (BNB) went south by 3.8 per cent to $472.43, Ethereum (ETH) lost 3.2 per cent to quote at $3,516.92, Cardano (ADA) declined by 3.1 per cent to $0.6576, Litecoin (LTC) recorded a 2.9 per cent loss to sell at $83.35, Ripple (XRP) dropped 1.7 per cent to trade at $0.6088, and Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 0.9 per cent to $67,560.24.

However, Solana (SOL) jumped by 2.6 per cent to $202.78, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.