Cronos in 2025: What We Built Together
2025 was a defining year for Cronos. The ecosystem moved from groundwork to visible execution, delivering infrastructure upgrades that improved performance by an order of magnitude, expanded institutional participation and clarified Cronos’ role in bringing global finance on-chain.
This was a year where strategy became tangible.
Interoperability and Liquidity at the Core
Cronos strengthened its cross-chain foundations early in the year. The integration of LayerZero connected the network to more than 115 blockchains including Ethereum and Solana. This unlocked aggregated liquidity and enabled builders to design applications that operate across ecosystems by default.
Interoperability was reinforced with the launch of Stargate ETH and USDC pools on Cronos EVM, improving omnichain liquidity and capital efficiency for DeFi users and protocols.
Usability That Reaches the Real World
A major step toward everyday adoption came through Cronos’ partnership with Crypto.com. The launch of direct crypto-to-prepaid card transfers enabled users to move funds from non-custodial wallets on Cronos directly onto prepaid cards with minimal friction.
Together with Auto Harvest, which automatically converts on-chain rewards into spendable assets, these improvements reduced manual steps and made everyday usage meaningfully more seamless.
10x Performance as a Baseline
Performance became a defining differentiator in 2025. Cronos EVM delivered a 10x reduction in base gas fees alongside a 10x improvement in block times, reaching approximately 0.5 seconds. These upgrades positioned Cronos among the fastest blockchains globally and supported a 400 percent increase in daily transactions.
Additional upgrades across the Cronos POS chain further strengthened execution and stability at scale.
Institutional Access at Unprecedented Scale
Cronos continued expanding institutional participation through regulated ETPs in Europe and trust structures for U.S. investors.
The most significant development came via Crypto.com with the announcement of Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, a publicly announced digital asset treasury initiative focused on CRO. With more than $6 billion in potential capital commitments, validator participation and long-term lockups, this marked the largest CRO-focused treasury strategy to date and a major signal of institutional confidence in the Cronos ecosystem.
Builders, DeFi and Tokenization
Cronos advanced its builder and DeFi stack throughout the year. A collaboration with Amazon Web Services brought enterprise-grade blockchain data access, AI tooling and startup credits to the ecosystem. Capital-efficient lending infrastructure was announced in collaboration with Morpho and Crypto.com, laying the groundwork for stablecoin markets and future tokenized real-world asset collateral.
The Cronos EVM Smarturn upgrade introduced smart accounts via EIP-7702, new EVM capabilities aligned with Ethereum upgrades and further performance improvements.
Ecosystem Growth and Community Activation
Cronos doubled down on ecosystem growth through its $100M ecosystem fund, restructured into targeted builder programs. Community engagement expanded with the launch of the Cronos Ambassador Program, empowering 90+ contributors across content, education and regional leadership.
Cronos also maintained a strong presence at Korea Blockchain Week and Token2049, engaging builders, institutions and partners through panels, events and ecosystem activations.
Developer momentum continued with the launch of the x402 PayTech Hackathon, featuring a $42,000 prize pool and a focus on AI-native and on-chain payment applications.
Cronos One and Leadership for the Next Chapter
The launch of Cronos One marked a major step in simplifying ecosystem entry. As a unified onboarding and activation hub, Cronos One guides users through bridging, card top-ups and wallet verification while unlocking benefits across leading Cronos dApps.
Cronos closed the year with key leadership appointments. Edward Adlard joined as Head of Ecosystem, followed by Ryan Wyatt as CEO of Cronos Labs, bringing deep experience across consumer platforms, gaming and crypto ecosystem growth.
With 10x performance gains, institutional-scale adoption and a clear path to global finance on-chain, Cronos enters 2026 positioned to scale with confidence.