Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market on Friday by 50 Kobo or 0.11 per cent to close at N461.75/$1 compared with the exchange rate of N461.25/$1 on Thursday.
This was caused by FX demand pressure on the Naira during the trading session as people with the local currency made efforts to offload the higher denominations of N200, N500, and N1,000 ahead of the January 31 deadline of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Yesterday, the value of forex transactions in the official window closed at $97.67 million, in contrast to the $45.16 million recorded in the preceding trading day, indicating an increase of 116.3 per cent or $52.51 million.
However, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) arm of the FX market, the domestic currency appreciated against its American pair by N2 to trade at N762/$1, in contrast to Thursday’s value of N764/$1.
Also, in the parallel market, the local currency appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N2 to sell at N750/$1 versus the previous day’s exchange rate of N752/$1.
In the interbank window, the Nigerian currency closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro during the session at N567.45/£1 and N500.73/€1, respectively.
Meanwhile, in the crypto market, it was another good day for investors as most of the tokens monitored by Business Post closed higher, with Bitcoin (BTC) rising above $23,000 on Friday as traders awaited next week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision on interest rates and any hints policymakers may drop about when their hiking campaign might end.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation gained 1.2 per cent yesterday to trade at $23,096.01, as its rival, Ethereum (ETH), moved up by 1.6 per cent to $1,596.65.
Cardano (ADA) climbed higher by 4.3 per cent to finish at $0.3883, Dogecoin (DOGE) grew by 2.9 per cent to $0.0874, Solana (SOL) jumped by 2.3 per cent to trade at $24.42, Litecoin (LTC) appreciated by 1.9 per cent to quote at $88.58, Binance Coin (BNB) nudged up by 1.5 per cent to $307.42, and Ripple (XRP) rose by 1.2 per cent to $0.4106, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) closed flat at $1.00 each.
