By Adedapo Adesanya
The value of the Naira to the Dollar depreciated on Monday by N1.25 or 0.18 per cent on Monday at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange market to N420.25/$1 from the previous session’s rate of N419.00/$1.
This followed a significant FX demand pressure on the local currency amid a shortage in the supply of forex into the system, with politicians mopping up the few available to woo delegates in a bid to secure a presidential ticket for the 2023 elections.
A few aspirants of the just-concluded primary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) confirmed that the process has been dollarized by politicians and this weekend, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will conduct a primary for its ticket-bearer and it would be expected to affect the FX market as some of them try to buy their way.
’At the investors’ FX window yesterday, there was a rise in FX trades by $15.07 million or 13.97 per cent to $122.91 million from the previous session’s $107.84 million.
At the interbank segment, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by 88 kobo to trade at N525.45/£1 compared to the previously traded rate of N524.45/£1 and against the Euro, it lost N2.31 to trade at N447.57/€1 versus last Friday’s N445.26/€1.
However, at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment, the Naira gained N1 against the US currency to settle at N616/$1 in contrast to the preceding session’s N617/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, nine of the 10 benchmarked tokens pointed northwards in an early sign of fresh recovery in the asset class which has witnessed one of the tumultuous months in May.
The crisis-hit coin, which has been rebranded as TerraClassicUSD (UST), was the only declining coin as it failed to arouse interest from burned investors, plunging by 18.3 per cent to $0.0237.
Cardano (ADA) recorded a 13.5 per cent gain to sell at $0.5823, Ethereum (ETH) rose by 6.2 per cent to sell at $1,992.06, Litecoin (LTC) improved by 5.5 per cent to trade at $69.21, Ripple (XRP) went up by 5.0 per cent to $0.418, while Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 4.8 per cent to $31,763.37.
In addition, Solana (SOL) recorded a 3.8 per cent increase to sell at $47.50, Dogecoin (DOGE) also gained 3.8 per cent to trade $0.0875, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to quote at $302.03, while the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) rose by 0.02 per cent to $0.9994.
Modupe Gbadeyanka