BY CHARLES ABUEDE
Nigerians’ average first deposit to trade on the cryptocurrency platform, Luno, has been put at $10 over a 12 calendar-month period, but it is still behind the $76 deposit made by Singaporean users, the highest on the platform, the company has said in a new report.
But despite being well behind Singaporean users, Nigeria remains one of the biggest markets in the world for the cryptocurrency trading platform.
In the recent report showing it has added more customers pushing the numbers above 10 million, Luno said as of March 12, the average holding time for a Luno user is over seven months, with South Africa, the company’s most active market, holding for the longest time at an average of 10 months.
The global cryptocurrency company also said the milestone 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 and Uniswap.
The crypto platform further disclosed that it has surpassed 10 million customers across 40 countries after it acquired one million users in just six months which was followed by a successful year that saw it grow its global customer base by 35 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, since its launch in 2013 has enabled over $52 billion of crypto to be safely transacted and its customers have stored in excess of $1 billion as the firm aims to bring crypto to over one billion people by 2030, and there is incredible demand for cryptocurrencies in many emerging and frontier markets.
The cryptocurrency market, after soaring to an all-time high market cap of $3 trillion in November 2021, fell to its lowest level in five months in January 2022, amidst regulation concerns and a challenging macro-economic environment.
Luno said that despite these developments, it has continued to grow and play a key role in the adoption of crypto across the world as the industry proves its resilience with its own crossing of the $2 trillion mark in March.
Africa remains one of Luno’s strongest markets with over 55 percent of the new customers added in the last six months based on the continent. On average Africans deposit $53 when they open their account and tend to hold for seven months. Also, 29 percent of new customers bought Bitcoin, while nine percent bought Ethereum.
However, the last year saw Luno grow its customer base in Indonesia by 83 percent, almost doubling its customers in the region. It also provided one million more South Africans with access to cryptocurrencies for the first time.
Marcus Swanepoel, Luno’s chief executive officer and co-founder, while commenting on the company’s milestone 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.”
Also, 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 a 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.”
