Marius Reitz, general manager for Africa at Luno, claimed that over 80 million South African rands ($5.4 million) worth of crypto has been completed on Luno’s South African platform on a daily basis in the last month, local tech publication TechFinancials reports Sept. 10.
Major South Africa’s crypto exchange Luno has continued growing, having processed more than $5 million worth of crypto in August 2019.
Reitz reportedly stated that South Africa is one of the Luno’s strongest markets, noting the rising appetite for crypto trading in the country.
Three million wallets milestone
Luno has also seen a significant surge of new customers, having reached a milestone of three million wallets across 40 countries on its platform. In comparison, Blockchain.com, one of the most popular global crypto wallets, has around 41 million wallets to date.
According to the executive, reaching three million wallets indicates the increasing global adoption and reinforces the company’s purpose of “reimagining a financial system where money is cheaper, faster and safer with open and equal access for everyone.”
London-based South African exchange
Backed by major global Internet and entertainment group Naspers, Luno exchange was founded in 2013 by two South Africans, Marcus Swanepoel, a former investment banker, and Timothy Stranex, a former Google’s software engineer, the report notes. To date, Luno is headquartered in London and operates across Africa, South East Asia and Europe.
Luno offers operating major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) and is 105th biggest crypto exchange by average daily trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap. On Aug. 23, Luno added support of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
In late August, Luno’s CEO Marcus Swanepoel claimed that the majority of its clients use Bitcoin as a tool for investing and speculating, while transaction purposes account for a small share of use cases on the platform.
SIX Exchange Launches First Crypto ETP in Swiss Franc
Another crypto-based financial product is coming to the Swiss stock exchange SIX.
Fintech firm Amun and crypto service Bitcoin Suisse announced Thursday the launch of its Swiss franc denominated Amun Bitcoin Suisse BTC/ETH exchange-traded product (ETP) under the ABBA ticker. Nine parts bitcoin and one part ether, the ETP captures some 75 percent of the total cryptocurrency market cap in one listed product.
In an interview, Amun CEO Hany Rashwan said the ETP serves as an important financial hedge. Based on the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap and denominated in Swiss francs, Rashwan said the product is uniquely Swiss.
“It’s the conservative Swiss way of doing things”, Rashwan told CoinDesk. “It’s safe, cheap, and conservative.”
Unlike exchange-traded notes (ETNs), ETPs are legally obligated to be backed one-to-one by reserves. Amun says the ETP is fully collateralized with bitcoin and ether custodied in Switzerland by Bitcoin Suisse. The firm’s first ETP since its founding in 2013, Bitcoin Suisse currently holds some $1 billion.
The product follows Amun’s numerous other crypto-based ETPs launched this year, based on leading cryptocurrencies by volume traded such as bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum and XRP.
Rashwan told CoinDesk the firm expects to have some $75 million in assets under management for this type of product’s portfolio by the end of the year, spurred on by further product launches this coming quarter, including ETPs.
Said Rashwan:
“Amun is expanding to more stock exchanges across more geographies covering more assets and more currencies.”
