Crypto.com Coin (CRO) is the native token of the Crypto.com Chain.
Although CRO was originally developed as an ERC-20 token (meaning that it was built using the Ethereum network), Crypto.com Chain now exists as its own public, open-source blockchain.
You can think of the Crypto.com Coin (CRO) in a similar way that you can think of Binance Coin (BNB).
Both are cryptocurrencies backed by major centralised exchanges.
Originally intended to offer clients of their exchange rewards and lower trading fees for holding, both have subsequently launched their own blockchains.
With possibly the most recognisable domain in the industry, Crypto.com Coin (CRO) has the potential and the cash backing to go to another level.
This guide to Crypto.com Coin (CRO) will go over everything you need to know about both the coin and its associated blockchains including their EVM compatible Cronos chain.
When it comes to the jargon around Crypto.com Coin, there are a few terms and concepts that we need to introduce.
Our Crypto.com Coin Guide starts off by outlining the differences between Crypto.com Coin, the Crypto.com chain and the brand new, EVM compatible Cronos chain.
Once you understand these differences and how each fits into the overall Crypto.com ecosystem, then you can confidently move forward into the meat of this guide.
The CRO coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Crypto.com centralised exchange (CEX).
Holders of CRO tokens are eligible for perks such as discounted trading fees on the CEX and the ability to earn more when lending on the CEX.
But most importantly (at least initially), is that CRO holders have the ability to earn cash back on purchases made with the Crypto.com card, the premier crypto card available.
While CRO was initially launched as an ERC20 token on Ethereum, it now runs as the settlement asset on its own Crypto.com chain.
You can think of the Crypto.com Chain in the same way you would think of the Binance Chain, the company’s original public blockchain protocol designed with a focus on enabling transactions between customers and merchants.
The chain is designed specifically for the use of mobile payments, with dApps focused on supporting a use case for the CRO token in this manner.
If the Crypto.com Chain can be compared to the Binance Chain, then the Cronos Chain can be compared to the Binance Smart Chain.
Cronos is an EVM compatible sidechain that runs parallel to the Crypto.com Chain.
It runs on a Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus algorithm and is powered by the PoS chain interoperable with Ethereum, called Ethermint.
Just like BSC, Cronos’ stated goal is to scale its DeFi ecosystem and remain interoperable with Ethereum and other EVM-compatible blockchains in the ecosystem.
With an end goal of being able to offer a truly decentralised blockchain, entirely facilitated by the CRO coin, Cronos’ differentiation from the Crypto.com branding is in our opinion, quite smart.
At the heart of everything is the Crypto.com CEX, owned by parent company Foris Technology and cofounded by Polish-born entrepreneur Kris Marszalek.
Ultimately Crypto.com allows clients to buy Bitcoin or altcoins with 20+ fiat currencies and then spend their funds using current payment networks thanks to the Crypto.com Visa Card.
The CEX allows clients to learn, spend, track and even borrow crypto at extremely competitive rates, directly from their platform.
After previously introducing the Crypto.com Coin and where it fits into the company’s branded ecosystem, let’s now move on to a deeper look at how each blockchain works.
This section of our Crypto.com Coin guide takes a more technical look at the blockchains and how the CRO token is successfully integrated into each.
While the company’s Crypto.com brand name is obviously one of their most important assets, the Crypto.com Chain actually uses the Crypto.org domain.
Developed by Crypto.org, Crypto.com Chain is a public, open-source, permissionless blockchain, a high-speed, low-fee network that helps promote mass adoption of blockchain technology.
By developing key pieces of architecture and technology to enable decentralisation, the long-term goal of this blockchain is for it to be able to run without the need for the company backed CRO Protocol Labs.
The Crypo.com Chain uses a Cosmos SDK and Tendermint Core’s Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism and its native token is obviously CRO.
This allows the chain to perform at a high level, while remaining flexible and solving multiple use cases.
But the ultimate use-case of the Crypto.com chain remains to empower the future of payments in cryptocurrency by backing the QR Code payment solution of Crypto.com Pay.
Make sure you check out the Crypto.com Chain whitepaper for more in-depth technical detail about the blockchain.
Next up, we have the company’s EVM blockchain called Cronos.
Cronos leverages the Cosmos software development kit (SDK) and uses a Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism.
This offers the network a streamlined and scalable protocol that is able to maintain security via a range of validators.
The network will use the CRC-20 token standard, with the native token of Cronos being CRO, which will be used to power on-chain transactions and pay for network fees.
You can think of Cronos in the same way that you would think of Binance Smart Chain (BSC), minus the company branding.
Also like BSC, Cronos’ initial list of validators all have ties to Crypto.com itself.
But just as we mentioned above, the long-term goal of this blockchain is also for Cronos to be able to run without the need for the company backed CRO Protocol Labs.
Most excitingly, with the launch of the Cronos mainnet, the company now has EVM and smart contract capabilities which make it a prime candidate to compete in the DeFi space.
The ultimate goal of Cronos is of course to massively scale the decentralised finance and decentralized application ecosystem.
They aim to achieve this goal by providing developers with the ability to instantly port apps from Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains.
While Crypto.com may be a little slow to this game, there’s no doubt that their brand recognition will attract some high profile dApps and players onto Cronos.
Tieing the Cronos blockchain back into the Crypto.com Coin (CRO), the growth of the company's entire blockchain ecosystem will ultimately add additional utility to the token.
From a blockchain point of view, you can no doubt see the potential for CRO to continue going from strength to strength.
For us, CRO remains an exciting coin that deserves its place within the top 20.
Crypto.com Coin (CRO) is the native token of the Crypto.com blockchain and is used for a variety of purposes within the Crypto.com ecosystem.
Here are some of the primary use cases for CRO:
Payment: CRO can be used as a payment method within the Crypto.com app and ecosystem, allowing users to easily pay for goods and services.
Staking: CRO holders can stake their tokens to earn rewards in the form of additional CRO or other cryptocurrencies.
Trading: CRO can be used as a trading pair on the Crypto.com exchange, allowing users to trade it for other cryptocurrencies.
Discounts: Users who hold and use CRO within the Crypto.com ecosystem can receive discounts on transaction fees, trading fees, and other services.
Governance: CRO holders have voting rights within the Crypto.com community and can participate in important decisions regarding the future direction of the platform.
Overall, Crypto.com Coin (CRO) serves as a key component of the Crypto.com ecosystem, enabling users to access a variety of services, benefits and rewards within the platform.
On November 8, 2021, Cronos announced to the public the launch of its mainnet beta.
In this section of our Crypto.com Coin guide, we investigate what Cronos is, what is its connection to Crypto.com and finally what progress the Cronos project has made since its inception.
Cronos was launched with the purpose of facilitating the interoperability between the Cosmos platform and the Ethereum Virtual Machine platform.
Cronos accomplishes this task by utilising Ethermint (a blockchain architecture built on Cosmos SDK which is proof of stake and EVM compatible).
At the heart of Cronos is the enabling of developers to easily port their smart contracts and DApps from Ethereum and EVM compatible blockchains to the Cronos system in a low cost/fast speed manner by integrating the Inter-Blockchain Communications protocol.
The best way to understand what Cronos is is to look at its connection to the Crypto.com ecosystem.
It is necessary to note that the native utility token of the Cronos blockchain is Crypto.com's CRO token.
CRO powers all on-chain transactions and likewise all network associated fees are paid with the CRO token.
"The growth of the Cronos ecosystem will bring additional utility to the CRO token with its existing use cases in the Crypto.org chain and Crypto.com ecosystem."
Cronos also operates adjacent to the Crypto.com blockchain.
Cronos aims to massively scale Crypto.com's DeFi systems through the allowance of developers to instantaneously port their DApps from Ethereum and EVM compatible blockchains to Cronos.
Using Cronos, Crypto.com users may now take advantage of faster, cheaper and safer transfers of the following crypto assets:
According to the Cronos official documentation, more tokens will be supported by the platform soon.
The Cronos official website identifies five advantages of using Cronos in conjunction with Crypto.com:
Developers and users should rest assured as Cronos is definitely up to date:
“We are using the latest Cosmos SDK v0.44 family and the IBC v1 family. This makes Cronos offer the most up-to-date features and fixes from Cosmos SDK and can potentially connect with other Cosmos chains at ease.”
Cronos boasts of a healthy growing ecosystem emphasising the following significant partnerships:
"To further support the Cronos ecosystem, our partner blockchain accelerator Particle B has announced the CRO EVM Fund. Particle B will grant up to USD$1 million per project to at least 100 projects committing to building applications, toolings and infrastructure on Cronos."
As demonstrated on the chart that follows, Cronos exhibits a healthy degree of developer activity:
Cronos rightfully boasts of the accomplishments it has already achieved.
However, nonetheless, a review of its roadmap, if these goals may be obtained for Q 1 and Q 2 2022, paints a very bright future.
In the first half of 2022, Cronos intends to launch the mainnet version of its Gravity Bridge, as well as integrate additional IBC channels and expand its IBC tokens whitelist.
In this section of our Crypto.com Coin guide, we will compare two cryptocurrencies:
This guide shows you an unbiased feature set comparison of blockchains in the discussion.
The following table shows you the comparison points between CRO and BNB.
| Crypto.com Coin (CRO) | Binance Coin (BNB) | |
|---|---|---|
| CRO was launched in March 2021 as a native coin to the Crypto.org mainnet. | Binance Coin was launched in 2017 as a native coin to the Binance exchange. | |
| CRO is based off crypto.org which is a public blockchain, however the chain is being handled by centralised team. | BNB was previously on the Ethereum chain, later migrated to Binance Chain which is developed by centralised team. | |
| CRO has a max. supply of 30,263,013,692 and circulating supply of 25.26 billion CRO. | BNB has a max. supply of 166,801,148 BNB coins and circulating supply of 166,801,148 BNB coins. | |
| Crypto.org mainnet & CRO coin makes use of the CosmWasm which supports multiple programming language & supports Ethereum Virtual Machine. | Binance Chain is an independent chain that supports various programming languages & also supports Ethereum Virtual Machine. | |
| CRO supports development of the dApps, Smart Contracts, DEX and Oracles on it's blockchain. | Binance's BNB also supports development of the dApps, smart contracts, NFTs, and DEX on it's blockchain. | |
| CRO makes use of the Proof of the Stake & Delegated Proof of Stake as it's core blockchain makes use of Tendermint & Cosmos SDK. | Binance's BNB also makes use of the Proof of Staked Authority (or PoSA) consensus algorithm. | |
| CRO native currency was designed to solve the payment gateway challenges in the industry. | Binance BNB was designed to solve the scalability problems of Ethereum and to offer solutions from scalable blockchain. | |
| CRO being developed on top of the Tendermint & Cosmos SDK supports cross chain & bridge functionality. | BNB supports cross chain and bridge functionality with Ethereum & few other chains. |
The Crypto.org mainnet was launched with an intention to be a payment gateway and merchant solution on the public blockchain as an alternative to various payment gateways in the market.
Binance Chain was launched to solve the Ethereum scalability issue.
Both blockchains are being handled by the centralised teams & the enterprises behind them. In the decentralised context, they have fewer things to offer to the users who want privacy and anonymity.
Choosing these blockchains and their respective native coins depends mainly on the use case for developers and users.
While most pros and cons lists you’ll find online focus on the Crypto.com centralised exchange, we wanted to focus on the CRO cryptocurrency itself.
This section of our Crypto.com Coin (CRO) guide will consider the benefits and drawbacks of using CRO within the exchange and on the Cronos blockchain.
So before you make a final decision on whether to buy Crypto.com Coin (CRO) to possibly get involved in some of the DeFi dApps on Cronos, let’s get into a look at some of the pros and cons.
A look at the pros of Crypto.com Coin.
Staking bonuses from the Crypto.com exchange:
What’s the point of being a CEX branded coin if you don’t get any benefits?
One major pro of hodling CRO is that Crypto.com account holders with significant holdings will receive discounts on their trading fees.
As well as discounts on fees, CRO hodlers will also receive other extras such as priority customer service and the ability to trade OTC.
Ultimately, the more Crypto.com coin (CRO) you're able to stake, the more benefits you'll get from the exchange.
Access a higher-tier crypto Visa card:
This is another staking related pro for CRO hodlers.
By staking CRO, clients of the Crypto.com exchange are able to access higher card tiers on their branded Visa card.
Higher card tiers have better benefits and features such as lower fees and the prospect of rewards.
Once again, the benefits all come from the connection with the exchange for staked CRO.
A look at the cons of Crypto.com Coin.
Staking bonuses work both ways:
On the other hand requiring a huge buy in of the exchange’s native coin can also leave a somewhat sour taste in the mouth of clients.
Isn’t the exchange meant to be doing you a service regardless of how rich you are?
We definitely see this as being an issue in an industry where fairness and corporate gouging from centralised exchanges, isn’t exactly looked upon favourably.
Cronos’ CRO fees are relatively expensive:
The minimum gwei on Cronos is usually 5000.
When you compare this to its main rival in the Binance Smart Chain, even at the current price of both, this is extremely expensive.
Then what happens if the price of CRO catches up to the price of BNB?
Sure it’s cheaper than Ethereum itself, but this is likely going to put a huge ceiling on the CRO price.
Did you notice that none of the pros actually talk about CRO or the Cronos blockchain doing anything groundbreaking?
All of its benefits stem directly from the centralised Crypto.com exchange’s brand name and current industry standing.
CRO just doesn’t do anything new and exciting, or solve problems that other coins don’t already do better.
As a reward token for a centralised exchange, we question why it even needs to be a cryptocurrency and not just points in a database?
Then as a utility token for yet another EVM blockchain, what does it actually offer?
Not to mention the fact that CRO is actually looking like facing the same scaling issues that plague ETH and that will end up facing BNB as the BSC network continues to expand.
But in the modern crypto landscape, does efficiency and use-case really matter?
Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are both top 20 cryptocurrencies after all...
You definitely shouldn’t underestimate the Crypto.com brand name and the immense money behind the company thanks to the success of their centralised exchange business.
Just like we see with Binance and BSC, Crypto.com is going to pump a ton of time and money into Cronos.
As a result, the pros may not outweigh the cons, but there’s no doubting that CRO still has a ton of room to grow.
As you have already seen from within this guide, Crypto.com is so much more than a cryptocurrency exchange.
It should be better characterised as a 'crypto bank'.
Yes, the availability is still there to buy and sell covered cryptocurrencies.
However, you can also swap crypto with other users using your DeFi compatible wallet, you can spend your crypto using a debit style prepaid Visa card, you may get your pay in crypto, you can deposit cash into a provided interest bearing account and in several countries you may even obtain a crypto loan.
With such a broad spread of services available, this subsection of our Crypto.com Coin guide will look into the advantages and disadvantages of opening an account at the Crypto.com exchange.
In light of the foregoing, this Crypto.com exchange review has shown that it may be a suitable destination for you to satisfy your crypto needs if:
As we’ve already outlined in our Crypto.com Coin (CRO) guide, Crypto.com has evolved from a humble cryptocurrency exchange to a full financial service and blockchain juggernaut.
We’ve discovered that clients can obtain a wallet to buy/sell, apply for a crypto Visa card, receive brokerage services and even staking rewards by staking the native CRO token on either their CEX or Cronos blockchain.
This section of our guide goes over the token’s utility, takes a look at a number of expert price predictions and offers a final verdict on whether you should buy CRO in 2022.
In the company’s eyes, Crypto.com was also built in order to encourage the use of cryptocurrency as payment for transactions and to help build a network of cryptocurrency projects.
Initially, the CRO token was released to be the native token of the exchange, but it has since been used to offer clients rewards from staking, performing transactions and finally the world of DeFi via Cronos.
The entire Crypto.com ecosystem has seen major development thanks to the Cronos blockchain’s EVM capabilities, helping to provide cross-blockchain interoperability and providing a bridge between similarly compatible EVM blockchains.
Not to mention the fact that chains which support Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) are able to send selected coins from the Crypto.com exchange via Cronos and users of crypto.com can also bridge selected coins by using the Cronos network option within the exchange.
Since its release in 2018, CRO had seen some major growth.
From $0.02 as of January 2019, it had already risen to $0.09 by November that year.
Add another year and by September 2020, it climbed the price ladder to $0.17.
But CRO didn’t stop there, continuing to climb to $0.24 by April 2021!
For the rest of 2021, Crypto.com (CRO) saw some spectacular days, finding itself featured in both crypto and the mainstream news cycle.
There is no such thing as bad publicity after all!
First off there was the $100m deal between the company and Matt Damon, followed by the renaming of the Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles for 20 years and $700m.
This caused the price of CRO to reach an all-time high of $0.90.
While price has currently pulled back to around $0.48 at the time of writing, we’d rather attribute this fact to a wider market pause rather than any fundamental shortcomings of CRO.
Expert price analysts have different price predictions for Crypto.com (CRO) over the coming years.
Let’s take a look at some of their predictions:
As always, the decision to invest in a project is entirely personal.
From all indications, Crypto.com has the brand and money behind it, with plans of getting even bigger.
The Crypto.com Arena in LA has truly put the company on the map, but for them this is only the beginning.
Any future strength in CRO is poised to stem from both the exchange business and the Cronos network.
With this in mind, Crypto.com Coin (CRO) is worth considering as part of a balanced investment portfolio.
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