The Nigerian Naira weakened against the United States Dollar in the different segments of the foreign exchange (FX) on Thursday, June 19, amid strain in forex liquidity.
The external reserves have fallen below the $38 billion mark as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) maintained forex market interventions.
It appears that the apex bank has reduced its intervention this month after defending the Naira with $580 million in May with a sequence of forex market intervention sales.
A look at the black market segment showed that the domestic currency lost N5 against the US Dollar during the session to settle at N1,585/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N1,580/$1.
At the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) window, the local currency depreciated against the greenback by N5.84 or 0.37 per cent to quote at N1,550.55/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s N1,549.13/$1.
Equally, the Naira crashed against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by 28 Kobo to sell for N2,084.12/£1 versus Wednesday’s price of N2,083.84/£1 but gained N16.52 against the Euro by N16.52 to trade at N1,799.35/€1 compared with the N1,782.83/€1 it was exchanged at midweek.
As for the crypto market, selling pressure continued, contributing to a broader market downtrend as a major cyberattack on Iran’s biggest crypto platform, Nobitex, yesterday, in a new dimesion to the conflict. The hackers have stolen $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, among others. The attack was carried out by a pro-Israel group called Gonjeshke Darande.
The hackers sent the stolen crypto to special addresses where it cannot be accessible. Experts from Chainalysis, a company that tracks blockchain activity, say the attack was not for profit but to hurt Iran’s financial system due to the current crisis of the Iran-Israel war.
Dogecoin (DOGE) slumped by 1.7 per cent to $0.1677, Cardano (ADA) slid by 1.3 per cent to $0.5911, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 0.9 per cent to $84.47, Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 0.7 per cent to $2.14, and Ethereum (ETH) declined by 0.2 per cent to $2,520.56.
In addition, Bitcoin (BTC) crumbled by 0.2 per cent to $104,689.76, Solana (SOL) dipped by 0.05 per cent to $145.40, and Binance Coin (BNB) lost by 0.04 per cent to sell for $645.27, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.