Naira Flat at Official Market, Gains at Black Market as Bitcoin Slips

However, the domestic currency depreciated against the British Pound Sterling during the trading day at the official market by N21.25 to sell for N1,900.67/£1 compared with last Friday’s value of N1,879.42/£1 and against the Euro, it traded flat at N1,566.23/€1.

As for the parallel market, the Nigerian currency improved its value against the Dollar yesterday by N5 to quote at N1,560/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s value of N1,565/$1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was down on Monday as the Elon Musk-fronted Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) apparently set eyes on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Public pressure or findings from the initiative could reveal conflicts of interest or misconduct within the SEC, a move that could either weaken or strengthen the SEC’s position.

D.O.G.E. is a temporary non-governmental agency headed by Mr Musk to slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies. It is themed after dogecoin (DOGE), a memecoin project widely touted by Mr Musk in the past few years.

The SEC is known in online crypto circles for its hard stance on local crypto companies and token issuers under the erstwhile administration of Mr Joe Biden, though this has started to shift as the crypto-friendly Donald Trump took office on January 20.

At the market yesterday, Solana (SOL) recorded an 8.8 per cent depreciation to sell at $168.13, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 4.9 per cent to $0.2505, Ripple (XRP) slid by 3.9 per cent to $2.58, and Litecoin (LTC) slumped by 3.8 per cent to trade at $121.18.

In addition, Binance Coin (BNB) depreciated by  3.3 per cent to $652.61, Cardano declined by 3.2 per cent to $0.7814, Bitcoin (BTC) slipped by 0.9 per cent to $95,386.16, and Ethereum (ETH) tumbled by 0.6 per cent to $2,660.87, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 each.