By Dipo Olowookere, Adedapo Adesanya
As earlier predicted by some analysts a few days ago, the Nigerian currency is gradually coming under another round of pressure in the foreign exchange (forex) market.
A few weeks ago, the domestic currency succumbed to the high demand for FX, which forced the security operatives, especially the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to pounce on currency traders across major cities of the country. The action, according to analysts, would only bring about a temporary solution as it would further weaken the Naira in the nearest future.
This week, the Naira seems to be obeying the law of demand and supply in the parallel market as its value is gradually depleting again against the United States Dollar.
On Wednesday, the indigenous currency lost N9 or 1.36 per cent at the market segment to sell for N673/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N664/$1.
However, it was a different scenario at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, where the Nigerian currency appreciated against the greenback by 1.3 per cent or N9 to quote at N690/$1 compared with the N699/$1 it was traded a day earlier.
At the interbank segment, the Naira witnessed no movement against the British Pound Sterling and the Euro as it remained unchanged at N507.59/£1 and N429.08/€1 respectively,
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market finished stronger yesterday, with Ethereum (ETH) gaining 12.2 per cent to trade at $1,885.88 as it is set for an upgrade that’s been billed as one of the most important events in the history of crypto.
ETH has been working to shift to a new model for securing the network called proof of stake. Rather than relying on energy-intensive mining, the new method requires users to leverage their existing cache of ether as a means to verify transactions and mint tokens. It uses far less power and is expected to translate into faster transactions.
This good news spread to other coins as Bitcoin (BTC) recorded a 6.3 per cent jump to $24,409.32, with Solana (SOL) rising by 11.7 per cent to sell at $44.16.
Cardano (ADA) grew by 6.7 per cent to trade at $0.5438, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 6.1 per cent to sell at $62.19, Ripple (XRP) rose by 5.4 per cent to close at $0.3823, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 5.2 per cent gain to end at $0.0719, Binance Coin (BNB) improved by 4.7 per cent to $331.99, while TerraClassicUSD (USTC) added 3.4 per cent to quote at $0.0301, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) trading at $1.00.
