By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira continued its appreciation on the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, August 9, appreciating by 1.22 per cent or N6.48 to close at N1,572.20/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s rate of N1,593.62/$1.
The strengthening of the local currency started this week after series of declines triggered by pressure from the demand of foreign exchange (FX) by users.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had to return to the drawing board to find a means to address the forex liquidity issues affecting the financial system.
It intensified its intervention, resulting in the improvement witnessed in the FX market this week, especially with the sale of $876 million a few days ago at a rare currency auction.
This also helped the domestic currency to gained N15.32 against the Pound Sterling on the last trading session of the week, settling at N2,010.76/£1 compared with Thursday’s rate of N2,026.08/£1. It further appreciated against the Euro by N12.60 to close at N1,726.27/€1 versus N1,738.87/€1.
At the trading day, the forex turnover increased by $181.12 million or 127.6 per cent to $323.11 million from the $141.99 million quoted on a day earlier.
A look at the black market showed that the Nigerian currency appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N15 to sell at N1,590/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,605/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, things turned awry on Friday as a result of economic worries, with Ripple (XRP) down by 5.5 per cent to $0.5819. This happened as Ripple, the enterprise-focused blockchain service closely related to the XRP Ledger, began testing its stablecoin on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet and XRP Ledger.
Also, Solana (SOL) slumped by 3.4 per cent to $155.16, ETH decreased by 2.6 per cent to $2,603.37, Dogecoin (DOGE) moderated by 1.9 per cent to $0.1039, Bitcoin (BTC) shed 1.4 per cent to $60,550.61, Cardano (ADA) lost 1.3 per cent to trade at $0.3473, Binance Coin (BNB) dropped 1.1 per cent to sell for $510.00, and Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 0.2 per cent to $60.75, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 each.