Cronos (CRO)

Cronos (CRO) is the native cryptocurrency of the Cronos blockchains, a family of networks created by the team behind the Crypto.com exchange and app. CRO pays transaction fees, is staked to secure the networks, and unlocks rewards and card benefits for Crypto.com customers. It was created in 2018 and was known as Crypto.com Coin until February 2022, when it was renamed after the Cronos chain while keeping its CRO ticker.

Two networks use CRO: the original chain, formerly called Crypto.org Chain, built with the Cosmos software kit associated with Cosmos (ATOM), and Cronos EVM, launched in November 2021 and compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine so that Ethereum applications can move across easily. Development is led by Cronos Labs. Crypto.com, a separate centralized exchange, remains CRO's best-known backer, much as Binance is for BNB.

Think of an airline's frequent-flyer programme. The more status you hold, the better the perks: lounge access, upgrades, extra miles. Crypto.com uses CRO in a similar way. Customers who lock up more CRO get better card rewards and lower trading fees. At the same time, CRO is the fuel for the Cronos networks, paying the small fee charged for every transaction and rewarding the computers that keep the networks running.

What makes CRO unusual is the story of its supply. In 2021 the project destroyed seven out of every ten coins that existed, which many holders read as a lasting promise of scarcity. In 2025 a vote brought those coins back into existence. It is a little like a company cancelling most of its shares and, four years later, voting to issue them again.

Crypto.com began in Hong Kong in 2016 under the name Monaco and adopted the Crypto.com name in 2018, when CRO was created with a total supply of 100 billion tokens. In 2020 holders of the company's earlier token, MCO, were moved over to CRO. In early 2021, ahead of the launch of its own chain, the project destroyed 70 billion CRO, about 70 percent of the supply, in one of the largest token burns on record. Cronos EVM followed in November 2021, and the coin took the Cronos name in February 2022. During the market downturn later that year, Crypto.com cut the rewards it paid on its CRO-linked card programmes. In March 2025 the US Securities and Exchange Commission closed an investigation into Crypto.com without taking action.

Both Cronos chains use proof of stake. A limited set of validators produce blocks and vote on changes, and holders can delegate CRO to them to earn a share of the rewards; see staking. Cronos EVM hosts lending, trading and other decentralized finance applications, and tokens can move between it and the original chain. Changes to supply, fees and rewards are decided through on-chain governance proposals in which staked CRO carries voting weight, so large validators have a large say.

In early March 2025 Cronos Labs proposed reissuing the 70 billion CRO burned in 2021 and placing them in a "Cronos Strategic Reserve" wallet, released under a multi-year vesting schedule. Voting ran from 2 to 16 March 2025. Many early votes were against the plan and turnout was at first below the 33.4 percent quorum, but a late wave of validator votes carried it, with about 62 percent yes, 18 percent no and 20 percent abstaining. Critics said the deciding validators were largely linked to Crypto.com. The total supply went back from about 30 billion to the original 100 billion. The effect on an existing holder's share of all CRO is:

• $h$ is the number of CRO the holder owns.
• $S$ is the total supply of CRO.

A holder of 3,000,000 CRO owned $3{,}000{,}000 \div 30{,}000{,}000{,}000 = 0.01\%$ of all CRO before the vote and $3{,}000{,}000 \div 100{,}000{,}000{,}000 = 0.003\%$ after it, a 70 percent smaller share once the reserve is fully released. Because the reserve vests over years, the dilution of the coins actually in circulation arrives gradually.

In August 2025 Trump Media and Technology Group and Crypto.com announced plans for a company that would hold CRO as its main treasury asset, and Trump Media agreed to buy 684.4 million CRO for $105 million. Governance later moved back toward reducing supply: by October 2026 holders were voting on burning 228 million CRO from the community pool, after earlier burns of 50 million each, and on a Cronos Labs commitment to spend all revenue from two of its products on monthly buybacks and burns.

The main criticism is centralization. Crypto.com and related entities hold a large share of the supply and run many validators, so votes on the coin's rules can be decided by the same company that promotes it. The re-mint led many observers to doubt that any future burn is permanent, undermining the deflationary tokenomics CRO had been promoted with, and repeated cuts to card rewards have shown that CRO's benefits depend on decisions by one firm. Like other exchange-linked tokens, CRO's value is also tied to the reputation, licensing and finances of that exchange.

• Cronos
• Cronos documentation
• Crypto.com