The New Golden Age for Cronos
CRO to onboard billions and invest in the U.S.!
The State of CRO Today
Since its inception, CRO has continuously evolved in tandem with the transformation of Crypto.com and Cronos ecosystem through several revolutionary milestones.
At its genesis, CRO was designed as a unified gateway to consolidate the benefits of the Crypto.com platform and also to secure the network for the then-nascent Cronos Proof-of-Stake (POS) chain, which was the first foundational step in establishing the Cronos chain ecosystem.
With the launch of the Cronos EVM and zkEVM chains, CRO has become a pivotal asset powering a rapidly growing blockchain ecosystem. Today, CRO fuels decentralized finance (DeFi) use cases, serving as a gas token, DeFi collateral, and a yield-bearing token for on-chain users. It also secures three interconnected chains that have collectively processed over 165 million transactions, driving value accrual for the Cronos ecosystem.
Now, as both Crypto.com and the Cronos ecosystem double down on their ambitious roadmaps, the stage is set for CRO to undergo its next evolution. This transformation is necessary to align with their bold vision and to propel the ecosystem into a new era of innovation and growth.
Bold Ambition
In November, Cronos unveiled a bold new vision to become the primary blockchain for AI Agents, a transformative vision that positions Cronos at the forefront of onboarding billions of users into crypto.
Simultaneously, Crypto.com announced an ambitious roadmap aimed at bridging the gap between crypto and traditional finance by launching groundbreaking initiatives, including ETFs backed by CRO (“Cronos ETF”). These efforts are designed to break down barriers and reach an even broader audience, encompassing retail and institutional users.
CRO lies at the heart of both these monumental efforts. As the ecosystem evolves, CRO will play a pivotal role as the central economic engine, driving adoption and enabling seamless integration for the next generation of crypto users.
Investing in the World Capital of Crypto
One of the most exciting parts of the roadmap is connecting CRO to the institutional liquidity pools through Cronos ETFs. The Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. has been the fastest-growing ETF of all time, attracting more than USD 100 Billion since its launch in January 2024. Securing a position among the top 10 protocols and achieving U.S. ETF approval will be essential to drive institutional adoption of CRO.
Making America the World Capital of Crypto will ensure the successful execution of the Cronos roadmap, hence we are proposing that the community vote on the creation of a Cronos Strategic Reserve, a reversal of the February 2021 token burn, to support this ambition.
Introduction of Cronos Strategic Reserve
In 2021, 70 billion CRO were burnt in one of the most significant burn transactions in history. Under today's proposal, an equal number of tokens will be re-issued on Cronos POS into a Cronos Strategic Reserve escrow wallet, bringing the total supply back to the initial supply of 100 billion CRO. The Cronos Strategic Reserve escrow wallet will operate under strict control mechanisms.
The Strategic Reserve escrow wallet will be subject to a new 5-year lockup on top of the 5-year lockup that has already passed since CRO's original issuance on Ethereum, bringing the total vesting period to 10 years. Vesting will be applied linearly every month and managed via a native Cosmos SDK vesting account mechanism on the Cronos POS chain (technically, vesting is applied every approximately 30.4 days or 2628000s).
With this change, CRO emission parameters will be adjusted to ensure that validator rewards remain at the same level. Detailed technical changes and their implications are outlined in the GitHub post.
Proposal & Upgrade Timeline
Proposal and on-chain governance voting schedule:
Governance proposal available: 3 March 2025
Governance Voting Start Date: 3 March 2025 (see https://www.mintscan.io/crypto-org/proposals/29)
Release of chain-maind binary v5: by 11 March 2025
Governance Voting End Date: 17 March 2025
Implementation: In the days following the end of the governance voting period, at the specified block height outlined in the governance proposal.