Mara Collapse: African Crypto Exchange Burns $16 Million for Salaries and Bonuses

Pan-African crypto exchange Mara reportedly lost approximately $16 million out of the $23 million raised from investors. Following the exchange’s collapse, founder and CEO Chinyere Nnadi is said to have launched a new entity called Jara. Nnadi reportedly argued that the exchange depleted its raised capital by paying high salaries to attract talent.

CEO Avoids Mara’s Liabilities

In 2022, the now-defunct Pan African crypto exchange, Mara, reportedly burned nearly $16 million from the $23 million it raised from investors. According to a Techcabal report, as much as $9.1 million of this amount was used to pay employee salaries, bonuses, and allowances for Mara’s reported 130 employees.

Following the crypto exchange’s spectacular fall, founder and CEO Chinyere Nnadi is reported to have launched another entity, Jara, sometime in January. However, the Mara CEO’s fellow executives, who resigned from the company in 2023, allege that the new entity has been created to help Nnadi avoid responsibility for Mara’s liabilities.

Fake Mara Wallets

The unnamed executives also laid the blame for the reversal in Mara’s fortunes at the CEO’s door. As previously reported by Bitcoin.com News, the crypto exchange, which raised $23 million via a seed equity round in May 2022, slashed its workforce by 85% in June 2023. Mara claimed it had only laid off workers whose roles had become redundant.

At the time, some former employees suggested that Mara’s ballooning marketing costs forced the crypto exchange to significantly trim its workforce. However, in an investor report, Nnadi reportedly argued that the crypto exchange had depleted the capital raised because it had paid high salaries to lure talent.

“We [paid high salaries] to attract talent [from well-paying companies like Apple and competitors like Yellow Card] but they didn’t always deliver,” Nnadi reportedly said.

Meanwhile, another unnamed former executive revealed that a quarter of Mara’s 4.5 million verified users were fraudulent accounts. The executive attributed the proliferation of fake Mara wallet accounts to the financial incentives offered under the company’s referral program.

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