Luno

Luno is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange and investment platform founded in 2013 under the name BitX. Rebranded to Luno in 2016, the company has grown to serve approximately 15 million customers across more than 40 countries. Its core proposition — summed up in the tagline "A responsible approach to crypto" — is to make digital asset ownership safe, simple, and accessible, particularly in emerging markets across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe where traditional financial infrastructure is less developed.

Origins and Ownership

Luno was co-founded in Cape Town by Marcus Swanepoel, Timothy Stranex, Pieter Heyns, and Carel van Wyk. Swanepoel, a former investment banker, and Stranex, an ex-Google engineer, led the company through its early years. Naspers, the South African media and technology conglomerate, invested $3 million in 2015, providing an early anchor of institutional credibility.

In September 2020, Digital Currency Group (DCG) acquired Luno outright, adding it to a portfolio that includes CoinDesk and Grayscale. DCG had first backed Luno at the seed round in 2014. The acquisition accelerated Luno's expansion strategy and access to capital.

Leadership shifted in March 2023 when Swanepoel transitioned to Executive Chairman and James Lanigan, previously Chief Operating Officer, became CEO. Timothy Stranex had departed his co-founder CTO role in December 2022. The current management team has continued Luno's geographic expansion while pursuing outside investment and, as reported at the time, exploring a potential public listing.

What Luno Offers

Luno operates as a full-service retail and institutional exchange. Its product lineup covers several distinct use cases.

Buy, sell, and trade. Users can buy or sell cryptocurrency directly via the Luno wallet or access an order book exchange for more precise trade execution. The exchange supports maker-taker fee models with maker fees at 0% in several markets (including the UK) and taker fees starting from 0.03% to 0.6% depending on region and volume tier. Fees vary meaningfully by geography: UK users see the most competitive rates, while users in Nigeria and Malaysia encounter higher spreads to account for local market conditions and regulatory overhead.

Luno Earn. This staking and yield product allows users to deposit eligible assets into a separate Earn Wallet, where funds are deployed to institutional borrowers. Reported yields have ranged from approximately 2% to 11% APY depending on the asset, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC among the supported assets. Specific SOL availability for the Earn product varies by jurisdiction.

Investment bundles. Luno offers pre-packaged baskets of multiple assets purchasable in a single transaction, lowering the friction for users who want diversified crypto exposure without managing individual positions.

Professional trading. Advanced order types, deeper liquidity pools, and lower fees are available for higher-volume users via the exchange's professional interface.

Institutional and OTC services. Luno serves corporate clients and high-net-worth individuals through over-the-counter desks and institutional-grade API access.

Additional features. The platform also includes prediction markets, stock trading in select markets, price alert notifications (push alerts triggered by price levels or percentage moves), and 24/7 virtual support through an AI assistant named Toshi.

Supported Assets

Luno supports approximately 37 to 50 cryptocurrencies with more than 100 trading pairs, with availability varying by region. Major assets include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), and stablecoins including USDC. The platform deliberately limits its asset list; all new tokens go through a lengthy internal review process before listing, with the goal of excluding speculative or low-quality assets. This conservative approach restricts the breadth of its offering compared to large global exchanges but is central to Luno's stated mission of responsible asset stewardship.

Solana is listed on Luno and appears in price charts alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum as a primary tracked asset.

Geographic Coverage and Regulation

Luno operates in over 40 countries with particularly strong roots in South Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Uganda, Kenya, Australia, France, and the UK. The United States is not a supported market. The platform holds regulatory authorizations in multiple jurisdictions:

• AUSTRAC — Australia
• AMF — France
• Bappebti — Indonesia
• FSCA — South Africa
• SC — Malaysia

Multi-jurisdictional licensing reflects Luno's deliberate focus on markets where crypto often serves real economic needs: remittances, hedging against local currency volatility, and access to dollar-denominated savings instruments. Its emphasis on these regions, and its localized payment rails and customer support, distinguishes it from most Western-focused exchanges.

Security Architecture

Luno's security model is layered and oriented around deep cold storage. The majority of customer assets — approximately 95% — are held in deep freeze cold storage managed through institutional custodians BitGo Custody and Fireblocks, stored air-gapped and offsite. Hot wallets cover day-to-day transaction needs and operate with multi-signature controls: three keys are required for any transaction, with one held by an external custodian, and offline key backups distributed across geographically-dispersed safety deposit boxes.

Additional controls include:

• Air-gapped private key storage on offline machines in managed security vaults
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) and biometric access controls for user accounts
• AWS-hosted infrastructure with encrypted traffic, HTTPS-only public endpoints, and isolated staging and production environments
• Engineers without direct access to production credentials; all deployments routed through independent servers
• Bug bounty program with rewards up to $7,500

Proof of Reserves. Following industry-wide credibility concerns after the FTX collapse in late 2022 and Mazars' subsequent withdrawal from crypto audit work, Luno resumed publishing monthly Proof of Reserves reports in October 2023. These are prepared by Moore Johannesburg using Merkle Tree verification, allowing users to confirm their individual balances are backed 1:1 by assets held in custody. Luno has committed to ongoing monthly reporting.

ISO/IEC 27001:2022. Luno's information security management systems are certified to this international standard, verified through ongoing external audits.

No public record of a successful hack or customer fund loss attributable to Luno has been reported since its founding.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Luno's connection to the Solana ecosystem is as a regulated fiat on-ramp and trading venue for SOL. For the large user base Luno serves in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe, it is often the most accessible licensed path to acquiring Solana tokens. Its multi-jurisdictional licensing and localized bank integrations mean SOL can be purchased with local currencies — Nigerian naira, Malaysian ringgit, South African rand, British pounds — without the friction of converting through intermediary assets on less-regulated platforms.

For users in Luno's operating markets, the exchange represents a regulated, audited, and beginner-friendly entry point into the Solana ecosystem. Its conservative listing standards and transparent monthly proof-of-reserves reporting distinguish it from unlicensed or under-regulated alternatives.

Luno does not interact with Solana's on-chain infrastructure directly. There are no native Solana validator staking integrations, no DeFi protocol connections, and no on-chain programs in its registry. Its role is custodial: users acquire SOL on Luno, and from there may withdraw to self-custody wallets to participate in the broader Solana DeFi and application ecosystem.