The Naira closed at N1,509.04/$1 in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Thursday after it appreciated against the United States Dollar by 53 Kobo or 0.04 per cent. In the previous trading day, it was exchanged at N1,509.57/1$.
However, the Nigerian Naira lost 63 Kobo against the Pound Sterling in the official market during the session to sell for N1,901.09/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,900.46/£1 and against the Euro, it lost N1.27 to trade at N1,574.83/€1 versus Wednesday’s N1,576.10/€1.
In the black market, the Naira appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N25 to quote at N1,510/$1, in contrast to the N1,535/$1 it was traded at midweek.
The local improved its value on the US Dollar at the spot and parallel markets as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) retained all key monetary rates, with the headline monetary policy rate (MPR) kept at 27.50 per cent after all members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously agreed to the decision, stating it was too early to start considering rate cuts despite slowing inflation.
This was expected after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced that Nigeria’s headline inflation dropped massively to 24.48 per cent following a rebasing that saw the base year change to 2024 versus 2009.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was strong on Thursday as rally in the US Securities and Exchange Commission unit tasked with chasing criminals in the crypto space will be smaller and called something significantly different.
In three years, the same internal group has transitioned from the “Cyber Unit” to the “Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit” and now to the “Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit,” seemingly taking some focus off its crypto role.
Litecoin (LTC) gained 3.1 per cent to sell at $133.30, Solana (SOL) grew by 2.7 per cent to trade at $175.75, Cardano jumped by 2.3 per cent to $0.7978, Bitcoin (BTC) expanded by 1.6 per cent to $98,473.43, Ethereum (ETH) rose by 1.4 per cent to $2,762.53, and Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 0.9 per cent to $653.46.
On the flip side, Ripple (XRP) lost 0.4 per cent to close at $2.66, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 0.1 per cent to settle at $0.2537, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.