Crypto adoption in Africa continues to grow
Crypto adoption in Africa continues to grow at a rapid pace, with Luno today announcing that 45% of one million new customers added since June are based on the continent.
Luno, the crypto company founded by two South Africans, now has 9 million customers in over 40 countries. The remarkable growth of the company is illustrated by the addition of one million new customers in just over four months and crypto adoption in Africa continues to grow.
The continued growth of crypto in Africa has also seen new entrants such as Yellow Card a pan-African cryptocurrency exchange recently announce a $15M Series A, to ramp up hiring and continue its expansion across the continent, while African blockchain company Bitmama also closing a pre-Seed round.
Marius Reitz, GM for Africa at Luno commented: “The average value of first deposits made by our million new customers is around USD32. Most new customers (83%) bought Bitcoin, while 27% bought Ethereum and 23% bought Ripple. Of the new customers, 35% are aged between 18 and 24, and gender splits align with trends in financial services – almost three quarters (65%) are male.”
Marcus Swanepoel, a former investment banker, and Timothy Stranex, who previously worked for Google as a software engineer, founded Luno in 2013 with a focus on providing a simple, safe and easy tool for buying cryptocurrency online and on mobile.
Reitz notes that it took five years for Luno to build a base of its first one million customers in 2017. “Luno’s growth has accelerated significantly since then. In the last year alone, we have added over 3.6 million new customers,” he says.
Luno was acquired last year by US-based DCG, the world’s largest blockchain investor and is targeting a billion customers by 2030.
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