Cryptocurrency exchange Luno is the latest company in the industry to lay off workers, cutting 35% of its global workforce.
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The CEO of the London-based company, Marcus Swanepoel, informed employees of the layoffs on Wednesday (25) at 12 noon London time.
“2022 has been a very challenging year for the tech industry in general and the cryptocurrency market in particular,” the company said in a statement shared with CNBC.
“Unfortunately, Luno was not immune from this disruption, which affected our overall growth and revenue numbers.”
Luno has approximately 960 employees, according to its LinkedIn profile, which means more than 330 jobs will be affected.
The cutbacks are affecting Luno’s marketing teams in particular.
A spokesperson for Luno told CNBC that the layoff action “will have little or no impact on the key operating and compliance teams.”
Luno, which has offices in Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe, is part of the Digital Currency Group (DCG).
DCG is one of many cryptocurrency companies affected by the fallout from the FTX crash.
The group, which has filed for bankruptcy, owns the bankrupt platform Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy last week.
In a statement shared with employees on Wednesday, Luno Swanepoel said the industry has gone through a “series of shocks” that have led to a restrictive financing environment and a shift toward long-term profitability.
“While we anticipated a downturn and planned proactively with a business and financing model that could be flexible to some of these factors, the scale and speed of all this happening, all at the same time, has put significant pressure on our original plan,” Swanepoel said.
“What this means in practice is that in addition to streamlining our strategy to focus on our core strengths, we also need to significantly reduce our cost base – which includes headcount across all of our markets – so that we are ready to drive success forward.”
Source: CNBC