Naira Weakens to N931.23/$1 at Spot Market, N1,320/$1 at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira lost 6 per cent or N52.66 against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Wednesday, January 17, closing at N931.23/$1 versus the previous day’s N878.57/$1 despite recent efforts to inject funds into the market.

Also, the Nigerian Naira depreciated against the British Pound Sterling in the spot market by N52.90 in the midweek session to trade at N1,133.01/£1 compared with the previous day’s N1,081.11/£1 and against the Euro, it lost N44.09 to sell at N973.16/€1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N929.07/€1.

The value of FX transactions recorded yesterday went down by 53.2 per cent or $78.59 million to $69.22 million from the $147.81 million transacted on Tuesday.

Similarly, the domestic currency depreciated against the American currency on Wednesday by N18 in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, selling at N1,321/$1 versus the previous day’s N1,303/$1.

Also, the value of the Naira plunged against the greenback during the trading day by N20 in the parallel market to quote at N1,320/$1 compared with the preceding day’s exchange rate of N1,320/$1.

As for the cryptocurrency market, it turned green yesterday, with Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) leading the charge after one of the largest asset management companies in the world, Franklin Templeton, which manages over $1.4 trillion in assets opined about the merits of layer one blockchain SOL and ETH, leading to speculation about the investment giant’s next move.

Last week, Franklin Templeton joined other major firms, including BlackRock, VanEck, Ark Invest, and Fidelity, in having their spot Bitcoin ETFs approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

ETFs trade on traditional stock exchanges, and their value should rise when the underlying asset increases in price, or fall if it decreases.

SOL made a 3.2 per cent appreciation to sell at $98.48 and ETH saw its value go up by 1.4 per cent to $2,565.27.

In addition, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 0.7 per cent to $0.0808, Bitcoin (BTC) improved by 1.4 per cent to $42,808.43, Cardano (ADA) expanded by 0.3 per cent to $0.5322, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) chalked up 0.05 per cent to $0.9997.

On the flip side, Binance Coin (BNB) slumped by 1.1 per cent to $311.62, Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 0.08 per cent to $69.42 and Ripple (XRP) shrank by 0.05 per cent to $0.5726, while the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00.