DCG subsidiary Luno to sack 35% of its employees

Luno, a crypto exchange subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group (DCG), announced that it plans to cut about 330 of its 960 global workers.

Luno cites harsh market conditions over past year

Luno’s CEO, Marcus Swanepoel, informed his employees on a live stream of the plan for massive redundancies in the coming days. The company gave a statement to CNBC and blamed turbulent market conditions in 2022 for its struggles, which affected the crypto market at large.

The London-based crypto exchange added that the harsh conditions also stunted its growth and revenue. With this announcement, Luno is now the largest exchange in the crypto industry to lay off employees.

According to Luno’s linked-in profile, the company has about 960 employees working in various offices worldwide.

The company has offices in Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia. About 35% of this workforce is set to be axed as the company seeks to decrease its expenses amid a challenging financial year. This puts the number of layoffs at just above 330. 

Luno’s spokesperson told CNBC that the marketing team would be the most affected sector in the sack plan. However, the operating and compliance teams will face minimal or no impact.

A series of financial problems

DCG, the conglomerate that owns Luno, had a series of financial problems that never seemed to end. Just last week, the company suspended dividend payments in a bid to preserve its liquidity. DCG’s troubles started with insolvency claiming its crypto lender, Genesis, in Nov. 2022 following the collapse of FTX.

In addition, the company and its CEO, Barry Silbert, are also facing a securities class action lawsuit (SCA). The SCA was filed by Genesis creditors claiming a breach of securities laws by conducting an unregistered securities offering.

Other ongoing issues facing the troubled DCG include an accusation by lenders against Silbert of a deceptive plan to hide a $1.1 billion loss in a string of poor bets made in the BTC market.