Luno Trims 20% of Staff, Joins 12-Firm July Layoff Parade Citing Automation 🚶‍♂️📉

Crypto exchange Luno is cutting roughly 20% of its global workforce as it restructures toward institutional clients, financial infrastructure and business-to-business services, CEO James Lanigan told Bloomberg on Tuesday. Lanigan said Luno had made "material investments in automation and broader operational improvements over the last year" and is developing tools "that are rapidly changing the resource model required to run the business effectively," enabling a "leaner and adapted structure." The company, owned by Digital Currency Group and headquartered in London, serves about 16 million users across Africa and Asia-Pacific. Founded in South Africa, Luno declined to specify the number of roles affected in the latest round.

The reduction follows January 2023, when Luno cut 35% of its staff, affecting nearly 330 employees. This time the exchange is scaling its B2B unit, planning to let lenders, fintechs and telecoms firms offer crypto under their own brands while Luno supplies liquidity, wallet infrastructure and compliance. Johannesburg-based Discovery Bank is already a partner, with Lanigan saying more announcements will follow through the year. Luno is also positioning itself in non-U.S. stablecoins across emerging markets and is a founding participant in ZARU, a rand-backed stablecoin whose other founders include Sanlam, Lesaka Technologies and EasyEquities, with plans to replicate the model in markets where local-currency infrastructure is thin.

Luno's rationale mirrors a wider industry pattern. Jobs tracker CryptoJobsList recorded layoffs or restructurings at 12 crypto and crypto-adjacent companies in July, with disclosed figures totaling 894 jobs affected, the tracker said. The platform has tracked more than 7,254 disclosed job cuts across 47 companies in 2026, with market conditions cited most often; the data skews toward broader fintech because it includes Block's 4,000-person reduction in February. Earlier in July, crypto wallet company Exodus announced plans to cut 25% of its staff while reorganizing around a full-stack card-issuance and stablecoin-payments platform, projecting between $10 million and $13 million in annual operating savings, and on Tuesday blockchain infrastructure developer Gnosis opened introductions for former employees affected by a recent restructuring tied to its consumer-facing Gnosis App.

Crypto.com cut 12% of staff in March, framing the move as a pivot to "enterprise-wide AI," Coinbase cut 14% in May, Dune Analytics cut 25%, and BitGo cut nearly 15% in June, with CEO Mike Belshe citing a focus on "AI-powered infrastructure." Two major crypto exchanges have also announced shutdowns: crypto perps exchange BitMEX said last week it will close on September 23, and Crypto exchange BitMart said Sunday it will wind down its trading platform after nine years, sending its BMX token lower. BitMart stopped taking new registrations, deposits and orders from 01:30 UTC on Sunday, ends all spot and derivatives trading on August 26, and will formally shut on January 31, 2027. Roshan Dharia, CEO of investment firm Echo Base, told Decrypt the closures indicate a "period of significant consolidation in digital assets." Separately, Robinhood reported second-quarter earnings Wednesday, posting record quarterly revenue of $1.31 billion in Q2, up 32% year-over-year.