By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira weakened by 2.8 per cent or N23.97 on the Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, December 22 in what was the final session before the Christmas break.
The value of the Nigerian currency closed at N885.88/$1 yesterday compared with the preceding session’s N861.91/$1.
However, the Naira ended in a stalemate against the Pound Sterling as well as against the Euro at N1,148.22/£1 and N933.77/€1, respectively.
During the trading day, the value of FX transactions decreased by 49.2 per cent or $89.14 million to $92.16 million from the $181.30 million achieved in the previous trading session.
The official FX market will close for the Christmas holiday (Monday, December 25) and the Boxing Day break (Tuesday, December 26) and resume on Wednesday, December 27, though the other will remain operational.
In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the Nigerian currency appreciated against the American currency yesterday by N20 to sell for N1,157/$1 versus the N1,177/$1 it traded a day earlier.
Also, in the parallel market segment, the domestic currency gained N35 against the greenback on Friday to trade at N1,160/$1 compared with the previous day’s exchange rate of N1,195/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, Solana (SOL) continued its stellar performance as it rose by 11.3 per cent to sell at $82.97 as ongoing hype for the blockchain’s speedy transactions, cheap fees and a lottery of meme coin issuances extended into its third week.
Solana has possibly been the strongest draw among on-chain traders, with trading volumes and network fees crossing Ethereum (ETH), which is usually the highest. The buying pressure has sustained even amid pressure from the bankruptcy estate of crypto exchange FTX, which held billions of Dollars worth of SOL.
Yesterday, Cardano (ADA) rose by 2.7 per cent to $0.5923, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 2.4 per cent to $43,426.99, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a 2.3 per cent rise to sell for $257.87, Ripple (XRP) improved by 1.2 per cent to $0.6136, Dogecoin (DOGE) chalked up 0.8 per cent to quote at $0.0911, and Ethereum (ETH) grew by 0.3 per cent to trade at $2,192.32.
However, Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 1.6 per cent to close at $69.70, while the US Dollar Tether (USDt) and US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 each.
Dipo Olowookere