Luno lays off 35% of its workforce, blames “series of shocks” in the crypto industry

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January 25, 2023
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2 min read
Luno

The news:

  • London-headquartered crypto exchange with operations in Africa has announced that it'll be laying off employees.
  • The company's spokesperson said marketing teams would be affected the most.
  • The job cut is due to reduced revenue during the crypto winter.

Crypto companies are not left out as layoff stories continue to grace headlines. Luno is the latest company in the layoff streak as it announces that it'll be laying off 35% of its employees. 

Per CNBC, CEO Marcus Swanepoel announced the announcement on Monday, January 25 2023, in a live-streamed town hall. 

With 962 employees working at the firm, according to its Linkedin page, about 337 people are expected to be affected by the layoff. 

According to a Luno spokesperson, the layoff will not affect people in roles such as operations and compliance. However, marketing teams across the company's markets will be affected the most. 

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2022 was a tough year for crypto

According to Luno, the ups and down of the crypto market have culminated in one of the worst years for the exchange. It 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."

The crypto market got its first major hit of the year when Terra's algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) crashed. The coin, which was supposed to be pegged to the US dollar, saw its value plunge to $0, wiping $18 billion of its market cap off the crypto market.

Accurately tagged a "series of shocks" by Luno's CEO, UST's spectacular fall affected crypto the entire market, including crypto lender Celcius and caused it to lay off 150 of its employees. After the fall of UST continued to wreak havoc on the crypto market, the fall of FTX threw the market into more problems. 

More crypto layoffs

Luno is one of many centralised crypto exchanges that has had to resort to layoffs. One of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, Coinbase, laid off about 950 in January 2023 after it cut 1,100 jobs in June 2022. 

One of Nigeria's foremost crypto exchanges, Quidax, also cut jobs by 20% reportedly cutting salaries months before. 

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While the crypto market is witnessing a bounce back, experts believe it could be shortlived, and the worse is yet to come. 

He's a geek, a sucker for Blockchain and an all-round tech lover. Find me on Twitter @BoluAbiodun1.
He's a geek, a sucker for Blockchain and an all-round tech lover. Find me on Twitter @BoluAbiodun1.
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He's a geek, a sucker for Blockchain and an all-round tech lover. Find me on Twitter @BoluAbiodun1.

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