Cronos

Cronos is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chain in the Cosmos ecosystem launched by the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com. CRO is a utility token powering the Cronos blockchain.

Previously, CRO was known as Crypto.com token before the company changed the token’s name to cronos in February 2022. Crypto.com is a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange that offers a mobile trading application, payment and lending service, and a crypto credit card.

CRO is the native token of Cronos, an open-source, decentralized blockchain developed for settling payments. Although CRO was originally developed as an ERC-20 token, Crypto.com launched its own Cronos blockchain in November 2021 on Cosmos. In addition to being used to settle transactions on Cronos, CRO holders enjoy benefits when using the Crypto.com suite of products, such as discounted fees, higher earnings for lending and priority services.

The Crypto.com ecosystem started out with monaco coin (MCO) as its native cryptocurrency but has shifted toward using CRO coin for all of its in-network functionalities. While MCO was first used to power the Crypto.com trading application, all Crypto.com users were asked to exchange the MRO into CRO on the Crypto.com app by November 2020.

CRO has a maximum total supply of 100 billion coins. The company has allocated the tokens in the following manner:

The founders of Crypto.com decided to freeze 60% of the total CRO coin supply to ensure the project’s long-term viability. The two respective wallets for the capital reserve and network long-term incentive allocations will remain frozen until November 7, 2022.

In November 2021, CRO hit its all-time high of $0.97 but dropped over the subsequent months. In late January 2022, CRO had fallen to $0.34 but quickly rebounded up to $0.51 before trading between $0.35 and $0.50.

The token is supported on several centralized and decentralized exchanges, including Crypto.com, Coinbase, OKex, Huobi and Uniswap.

The Cronos blockchain runs in the Cosmos ecosystem, which operates using a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The token standard on Cronos is CRC-20.

Cronos is also the first Ethereum-compatible blockchain network built on Cosmos SDK technology. Its Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol enables interoperability and bridging to the Crypto.org Chain and other IBC-enabled chains (e.g., Cosmos Hub). Cronos was built to link the Cosmos ecosystem and EVM ecosystem.

Crypto.com was founded in 2016 as Monaco Technologies by co-founders Bobby Bao, Gary Or, Kris Marszalek and Rafael Melo. In 2018, the company was renamed to Crypto.com.