Luno, the global cryptocurrency platform that aims to put the power of crypto in everyone’s hands, announced earlier this month that it has surpassed 10 million customers across over 40 countries. Luno has gained an additional 1 million customers in just 6 months. The news follows a successful year that saw Luno grow its global customer base by 35% year-on-year.
After soaring to an all-time high market cap of $3 trillion in November 2021, the cryptocurrency market fell to its lowest level in five months in January 2022 amidst regulation concerns and a challenging macro-economic environment. Despite this – Luno continued to grow and play a key role in the adoption of crypto across the world as the industry proves its resilience – having once again crossed the $2 trillion mark in March.
Since being founded in 2013, Luno has enabled over $52bn of crypto to be safely transacted and its customers have stored in excess of $1bn. Luno aims to bring crypto to over 1 billion people by 2030, and there is incredible demand for cryptocurrencies in many emerging and frontier markets. In the last year, Luno grew its customer base in Indonesia by 83%, almost doubling its customers in the region and provided 1 million more South Africans with access to cryptocurrencies for the first time.
Marcus Swanepoel, CEO and Co-Founder of Luno, said: “There are an estimated 300 million people using crypto worldwide as of March 2022 – a figure that is expected to grow as global markets gain better access to the crypto ecosystem. Our mission is to put the power of crypto in everyone’s hands and reaching the major milestone of 10 million customers shows we are leading the way in this transition towards building a better, fairer financial system for the world.”
Africa is one of Luno’s strongest markets, over 55% of the new customers added in the last 6 months are based on the continent. On average Africans deposit $53 when they open their account and tend to hold for seven months. 29% of new customers bought Bitcoin, while 9% bought Ethereum.
Marius Reitz, Luno’s General Manager for Africa, said: “We’re thrilled that our customers have helped us achieve this huge milestone. Today’s announcement is testament to the enormous appetite for crypto that still remains on the continent, despite the industry’s challenges over the last year. As we move forward, we want to continue equipping our customers in Africa with the confidence and guidelines they need to safely invest in cryptocurrencies.”
As of the 12th of March 2022, the average holding time for a Luno user is over 7 months, with South Africa, the company’s most active market holding for the longest time at an average of 10 months. Singaporean users also had the highest value of first deposits, which stands at $76 across the previous 12 months, compared to Nigeria, one of Luno’s biggest markets which had an average first deposit of $10.
The milestone announcement comes after a rocketing 12 months for Luno that was fuelled by the launch of Luno Expeditions, its global, early-stage investment arm to support the best fintech and crypto/web3 founders, and the addition of two more cryptocurrencies to its platform: Chainlink (LINK) and Uniswap (UNI). The company continues to forge strategic partnerships and expansions to drive its growth and today, is headquartered in London with over 800 employees across offices in London, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Singapore, which is up 89% in the last year alone.
