Cronos (CRO) is the native cryptocurrency token of Cronos Chain, a decentralized, open-source blockchain developed by the financial services company Crypto.com, which specializes in payment and trading solutions. Cronos Chain is part of Crypto.com’s suite of products aimed at accelerating the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. This initiative seeks to enhance personal monetary control, protect user data, and safeguard users' identities. The CRO blockchain is primarily utilized to power the Crypto.com Pay mobile payments application. Crypto.com intends to further extend the utilization of the CRO platform to support its other products in the future. CRO was launched during November-December 2018.

Cronos was introduced by Crypto.com as an integral part of its mission to “put cryptocurrency in every wallet.” Crypto.com was established in June 2016 under the name “Monaco Technologies GmbH” by Kris Marszalek, Rafael Melo, Gary Or, and Bobby Bao. Kris Marszalek, an alumnus of the Polish Adam Mickiewicz University, founded and led three companies before the inception of Crypto.com: the consumer electronics design and manufacturing firm Starline Polska, the location-based service mobile app and platform YIYI, and the e-commerce company BEECRAZY. Rafael Melo completed his bachelor's degree in engineering at PUC-Rio. With over 15 years of experience in finance, Melo has collaborated with major companies in Asia and played a key role in securing more than 50 million AUD in funding for the social commerce website Ensogo. Gary Or, a software engineer, brings over nine years of full-stack engineering experience. Before co-founding Crypto.com, Or served as a platform architect at Ensogo and co-founded the mobile app development company Foris. He earned his bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science from the University of Hong Kong. Prior to assisting with the launch of Crypto.com, Bobby Bao worked in the mergers and acquisitions department at the China Renaissance investment bank. Bao has pursued studies at the University of Melbourne, NYU Stern School of Business, and the College of William & Mary.

The CRO blockchain primarily focuses on providing utility to the users of Crypto.com’s payment, trading, and financial services solutions. CRO holders can stake their coins on the Crypto.com Chain to serve as validators, earning fees for processing transactions on the network. Moreover, CRO coins can be utilized to settle transaction fees on the Cronos Chain. Through the Crypto.com Pay payments app, users can receive cashback of up to 20% by paying merchants in CRO and up to 10% by purchasing gift cards and conducting peer-to-peer transfers to other users. In terms of trading applications, the Crypto.com App enables users to earn token rewards for select listings by staking CRO. Additionally, users can gain annual interest of up to 10-12% on their Crypto.com Coins by staking them within the Crypto.com Exchange app or with Crypto.com’s metal Visa Card. Overall, CRO functions as a tool that supports Crypto.com’s mission to expand the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. Consequently, the company is continuously striving to discover and develop new use cases, allowing users to leverage the cryptocurrency to enhance their control over money, data, and identities.

Cronos Chain supports a range of decentralized applications (dApps) and has a total value locked (TVL) exceeding $781.86 million at the time of writing, establishing it as one of the largest EVM-compatible chains. It is the first blockchain that facilitates interoperability between the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems. Several dApps on the Cronos Chain are promoting the adoption of CRO by utilizing it as the primary payment method for transactions. These include VVS Finance, Tectonic Finance, Ferro Protocol, MM Finance, and Single Finance.

The total supply of Cronos (CRO) is capped at 30 billion coins, following the burn of 70 billion CRO in 2021. All these coins were created at the inception of the blockchain, establishing it as a non-mineable cryptocurrency. The allocation of the total CRO supply is divided into five specific purposes: - 30% — Secondary distribution and launch incentives: Released in daily batches over a five-year period starting from November 14, 2018; - 20% — Capital reserve: Frozen until November 7, 2022; - 20% — Network long-term incentives: Frozen until November 7, 2022; - 20% — Ecosystem grants: Frozen until the launch of the Crypto.com Chain Mainnet; - 10% — Community development.

CRO is developed on Ethereum's (ETH) blockchain in accordance with the ERC-20 compatibility standard. Consequently, the network's security is ensured by the Ethash function.

Cronos Chain, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, was recently introduced to operate alongside the Crypto.org blockchain. This setup is similar to Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain, which is also EVM-compatible. The mainnet beta of Cronos Chain became operational on November 8, 2021. It is constructed on the Cosmos SDK and employs a proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism. Its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) enables the migration of thousands of DApps built on Ethereum to the Cronos Chain. Additionally, it supports the Inter Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol, permitting connectivity with the Cosmos ecosystem of DApps. Despite its recent launch, there has been a remarkable surge in the total value locked (TVL), which exceeded US$2 billion in under three months. This growth can be partially attributed to the Particle B $100 million CRO EVM fund designed to incentivize developers to create on Cronos. The $CRO token experienced a price increase of over 350% since its launch, hitting a peak of $0.96. A bridge between Ethereum and Cosmos is anticipated in the near future.

On January 18, 2023, the Cronos team announced the successful completion of its latest mainnet upgrade, "Galileo" (version 1.0). This upgrade signifies the blockchain's transition from its beta phase, having managed over 65 million transactions across more than 1 million users without experiencing any downtime. Cronos v1.0 introduces four major enhancements: * Prioritization of the mempool to further increase transaction throughput; * Optimized node storage, reducing storage requirements for full nodes by 30%; * A general reduction in node start-up time by approximately 50%, along with other performance improvements for nodes; * New Cosmos features aimed at enhancing EVM/Cosmos interoperability, including IBC incentivization and an IBC token transfer memo field.

The cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com consistently asserts that Cronos (CRO) (formerly known as Crypto.com Coin) remains a significant element in advancing blockchain technology and Web 3.0. Crypto.com introduced Cronos Chain as an EVM-compatible sidechain of its primary Crypto.org Chain. Both chains, along with the exchange itself, employ CRO tokens for various purposes.

Cronos Chain has outlined an ambitious roadmap for 2022, achieving several milestones in Q1 and Q2. A notable milestone includes the initiation of the Cronos Chain Ambassador Program (CROnauts), designed to recognize and reward active community members. In August, the fourth round of the Cronos Ecosystem Grant was announced. Five new projects—Cobo, DeFi.Watch, Robo Vault, Chainstack, and Grindery—received grants to develop their dApps after participating in the Cronos Chain Hackathon. As of this writing, the roadmap's remaining objectives for Q4 include the introduction of protocol governance, the implementation of interchain accounts, and the introduction of EVM packets over IBC.

The exchange-supported blockchains have not been the sole drivers of CRO's adoption. The surge in activities on Crypto.com during 2021-2022 has significantly enhanced the adoption of CRO. In 2021, Crypto.com announced a major token burn, permanently removing 70 billion CRO tokens from circulation. The exchange also established numerous partnerships in an effort to bring cryptocurrency to up to 1 billion users.