Cryptocurrency Exchange Plans Extension in Africa

Published: 21/05/2020

Cryptocurrency Exchange Plans Extension in South Africa

Naspers Ltd. is a company of global internet group. The said global internet group is one of the major technology investors in the world.

Naspers Ltd. backs Luno. Luno is a cryptocurrency platform that deals with Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Litcoin.

African Expansion of Luno

Luno is in talks of expanding in Kenya and Ghana to extend its African footprints. This talk rose because of the 99% rallies of Bitcoin in the past two months of coronavirus pandemic.

The general manager of Luno is Marius Reitz. The general manager said that Luno has profound interest in the markets of Ghana and Kenya. This was the reason why Ghana and Kenya are both high in their list.

He also added through the phone that the coronavirus outbreak has been beneficial in terms of transaction doubling exchanges. On the other side, the outbreak made it harder to travel to talk to the key stakeholders.

Luno, which trades Bitcoin, Ehtereum and Litcoin has recently stepped beyond South Africa and Nigeria. Reitz said that Luno starts to operate in Zambia and Uganda. Currently, the South African company has 400 people working for them. This number of 400 people are scattered across seven offices in Africa, Asia and Europe.

In June 2019, planned to hire 150 new employees by the end of the year. The purpose of the mentioned hiring was to boost Luno’s software development team. This makes Luno’s headcount of more than 400 across seven offices in three continents.

Reitz on the same year that the company is looking for business clients. As well as investors for the company. The general manager also said to add more cryptocurrencies in Luno’s portfolio.

Most of the new hired employee will be based in Johannesburg. Other new hires will be responsible for security and compliance. The new main Asian market of the crypto exchange platform is currently in Malaysia.

The crypto exchange platform was founded seven years ago. At present, it has four million users. The coronavirus pandemic cause the economies around the world to shut down. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic to the economies added about a million customers to Luno.

The general manager stated that people who looks for digital ways transaction increase the activity on the market. Adding to the digital way to transact is the limiting of human contact due to coronavirus.

Luno as A Response to Soaring Demand

Luno is one of the dozens of platforms in cryptocurrency that emerged around the world in response to the increasing demand of the likes of Bitcoin. South Africa’s investors are also using the digital currency as a barrier against price increase this year. South African currency is rand.

The South African currency experience a 23% depreciation against the US dollar this year. As of June 2019, rand become one of the world’s most volatile currencies. The currency has weakened more than 40% since 2013.

In 2015, Luno drawn $3 million in funding. Cape Town-based technology investors, Naspers, led the said funding.

Naspers is the biggest company in Africa. Naspers, Balderton Capital UK LLP, Rand Merchant Investment Holdings Ltd. together with Venture Capital and Digital Currency Group all own minority stakes of below 20%.