By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira erased the previous day’s gain at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) after it lost 3.00 per cent or N47.08 against the US Dollar on Friday to sell at N1,617.08/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N1,5700.00/$1 as a nationwide protest against hunger continued into the second day.
This coincided with a decline in the value of foreign exchange (FX) transactions in the official market by 7.6 per cent or $10.77 million to $131.55 million from the $142.32 million recorded in the preceding trading session.
However, the Nigerian currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling in the spot market yesterday by N17.61 to wrap the session at N2,051.50/£1, in contrast to Thursday’s closing price of N2,069.11/£1 and weakened against the Euro by N18.33 during the session to settle at N1,729.89/€1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,748.22/€1.
Business Post reports that the domestic currency declined against the American currency during the trading day by N10 to sell for N1,605/$1 compared with Thursday’s closing price of N1,595/$1.
The Naira is weakening even as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made efforts to supply authorised dealers and approved traders with Dollars.
However, a nationwide protest under the EndBadGovernance tag entered the second day marred by violence, death, and arrests in some parts of the country. According to Amnesty International, 13 have been estimated dead.
In the cryptocurrency market, benchmarked tokens fell on Friday as a weak July US jobs report published on Friday sent risky assets like crypto tumbling.
Solana (SOL) slumped by 6.5 per cent to $151.74, Ethereum (ETH) depreciated by 5.4 per cent to $2,972.56, Binance Coin (BNB) went south by 4.6 per cent to $546.87, and Bitcoin (BTC) recorded a 3.9 per cent loss to finish at $61,661.75.
Further, Litecoin (LTC) fell by 3.8 per cent to sell at $65.56, Cardano (ADA) dropped 2.9 per cent to trade at $0.369, Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 2.5 per cent to $0.1225, and Ripple (XRP) went down by 0.2 per cent to $0.5731, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.
