Digital Currency Group owns, well, a group of currency products — be that CoinDesk (the popular crypto blog), the Genesis brokerage, digital asset manager Grayscale, or, most recently, the Foundry crypto mining advisory group. Now, the company has added another currency product to the group: Luno. It’s a growing cryptocurrency exchange aimed at retail investors.
CoinDesk, perhaps not-so-appropriately, has the story:
Blockchain investment firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has acquired Luno, a retail-focused cryptocurrency exchange with over 5 million customers spanning over 40 countries.
Luno will continue to operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of DCG, the companies said. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed in an announcement Wednesday.
The deal marks another shift in strategy for DCG (which also wholly owns CoinDesk) as it makes a full acquisition of a solidly retail-focused business.
Originally based in Singapore before relocating to London, Luno is a pretty highly-trafficked exchange + wallet platform that has a pretty sizable user base. Now it’s owned by DCG.
For some scale: Coinbase, easily the most popular cryptocurrency exchange for retail investors in the US, has more than 35 million users in over 100 countries.
“…Luno intends to expand globally both organically and through acquisitions,” DCG’s chief operating officer told CoinDesk. “We view this deal as a potential first step towards a ‘roll up’ strategy under Luno.”