Luno reaches new milestone of over half a million Malaysian users in 2021

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Aaron Tang

KUCHING: Luno, the leading regulated digital asset exchange in Malaysia, announced that the company has garnered more than 600,000 customers at the end of November 2021.

This is a marked increase of over 233 per cent year on year (y-o-y) from around 180,000 customers recorded at the end of November 2020, indicating a strong consumer demand for cryptocurrencies in Malaysia.

As the largest digital asset exchange in Malaysia, Luno processed over RM12 billion worth of payments in 2021, a 4.3-fold increase from the previous year.

At the same time, Luno stores more than RM2 billion in value on behalf of its customers across five approved digital assets — Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

“Interest in digital assets among Malaysians continued to grow in 2021, with many investors looking to cryptocurrencies as an alternative store of value or a start to their investing journey,” Luno Malaysia country manager Aaron Tang said.

“The increased public awareness of cryptocurrency has encouraged more people to explore cryptocurrency’s other use cases, such as a payment system and purchasing unique digital assets such as non-fungible tokens (NFT). Hence, we remain optimistic that our customers can achieve their financial goals of growing and preserving their wealth through investing in digital assets.”

On Luno, the total active customers in Malaysia has grown by 518 per cent y-o-y from just over 60,000 in 2020 to 371,000 in 2021. The majority of activities came from users between 30 to 39 years old from diverse career backgrounds, including manufacturing, engineering, education, construction, healthcare, accounting, administration, and information technology.

When it comes to use cases, 76 per cent of users buy cryptocurrencies for investment purposes, 15 per cent for trading, six per cent for sending and receiving cryptocurrencies, two per cent as a payment method and one per cent for other purposes.

Regarding gender demographics, male customers comprise the largest segment at 75 per cent, whereas female participation accounts for 25 per cent.

Nevertheless, the growth of Luno’s female customer base has increased sevenfold from 2020.

This shows that female participation in the cryptocurrency space has been growing yearly, thus indicating a positive trend of cryptocurrency investment among female customers in Malaysia.

“Moving forward in 2022, we will further democratize access to the cryptocurrency market by localizing our application and educational resources to Bahasa Malaysia and enhancing our financial literacy initiatives to reach a wider audience.

“We hope that further innovation within the industry, enhanced democratisation efforts from regulated digital asset exchanges, as well as continued governmental support for the cryptocurrency space will continue to promote a conducive environment where Malaysians can invest into digital assets efficiently and responsibly.

“The positive growth of the industry is a testament to the nation’s fast-growing digital economy and it will support the nation’s development by helping drive more jobs and in the long-term attract foreign investments in Malaysia.”