Crypto Exchange Luno to Cut 35% of its Global Workforce

The DCG owned crypto exchange Luno, announced earlier this week that it would let go of 35% of its global workforce.

London-based cryptocurrency exchange, Luno, informed its employees on Wednesday that it is laying off 35% of its global workforce. According to Luno’s LinkedIn profile, the business has about 960 employees, meaning that around 330 jobs will be affected. Reports by CNBC indicate that the firm’s CEO, Marcus Swanepoel, informed employees of the redundancies via a live-streamed town hall. In an internal memo to CNBC, Swanepoel said:

2022 has been an incredibly tough year for the broader tech industry and, in particular the crypto market. Luno unfortunately hasn’t been immune to this turbulence, which has affected our overall growth and revenue numbers.

A spokesperson for Luno said that the layoffs will specifically affect Luno’s marketing teams, adding that the redundancies would have “minimal or no impact on key operating and compliance teams.”

Luno Becomes the Latest Victim of the FTX Collapse

Headquartered in London, the exchange has offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, Singapore, Lagos, and Sydney and is part of the DCG conglomerate. DCG has been caught up in the fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried crypto empire, FTX, and DCG’s lending arm, Genesis, filed for bankruptcy last week.

The crypto industry suffered a series of blows since the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD in May last year. In a memo shared with employees this week, Swanepoel said the crypto industry had seen a “series of shocks,” adding:

While we anticipated a downturn and proactively planned ahead with a business and funding model that can be resilient to some of these factors, the sheer scale and speed of all of this happening, and all at the same time, has put significant strain on our original plan.

What this means in practice is that in addition to streamlining our strategy to focus on our core strengths, we need to also substantially decrease our cost base – which includes employee headcount in all of our markets – in order for us to be set up for success going forward.

In January 2023 alone, almost 11 crypto companies announced layoffs, amounting to nearly 2000 job losses.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.