INTRODUCTION
On November 8, 2021, Cronos announced to the public the launch of its mainnet beta. In this article submitted for the Leo Finance Crypto.com Coin Guide let's investigate what Cronos is, what is its connection to Crypto.com, and finally what progress the Cronos project has made since inception.
WHAT IS CRONOS?
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 utilizing 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.
WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CRONOS AND CRYPTO.COM
In the simplest of terms, Cronos exists to operate 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: CRO, ETH, WBTC, USDC, USDT, and DAI. According to the Cronos official documentation, more tokens will be supported by the platform soon [See, e.g. Crypto.com. Crypto.com Exchange Is Now Integrated with Cronos. (Accessed December 2, 2021)].
The Cronos official website identifies five advantages of using Cronos in conjunction with Crypto.com:
- EVM Compatible: Cronos supports rapid porting of DApps and smart contracts from Ethereum and EVM compatible chains as it is built upon Ethermint.
- Scalable: Cronos is able to process more transactions per minute than Ethereum making this option faster, cheaper and greener in the execution of smart contracts.
- Interoperable: The IBC protocol utilized allows bridging and interoperability to the Crypto.org chain and other IBC compatible chains.
- Security: Using Proof of Authority, a more streamlined and scalable consensus mechanism is present, which maintains security by utilizing a wide range of validators run by many different parties.
- Open Source: Cronos welcomes community review and presentation of suggestions to strengthen the protocol.
[See: Cronos. Why Cronos?. (Accessed December 2, 2021)].
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. Cronos Mainnet Beta is now live. (Accessed December 3, 2021)].
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" [Id.].
WHAT PROGRESS HAS THE CRONOS PROJECT MADE SINCE INCEPTION?
PARTNERSHIPS
Cronos boasts of a healthy growing ecosystem emphasizing the following significant partnerships:
- Validators: Bison Trails, Stakin, Allnodes, Audit.one, Cosmostation, Ariane 6, CRO Nest, Crypto.bzh. CryptoWarfareUS, Defier, Europa, Icy Rod, Jerry’s Pool, Lastation, Nebkas.ro, Onward Singapore, Perseverance, Stakespace, Staking.Cafe, SwissCro, Ubik Capital, X Staking
- Decentralized Oracles: Chainlink, Band Protocol, Blink Oracle
- Cross-chain Bridge: Nerve, cBridge, AnySwap
- Wallets: Metamask, Crypto.com DeFi Wallet, Nabox, Trust Wallet
- DeFi: VVS Finance, Tectonic, CRODEX, CronaSwap, PhotonSwap, Annex Finance, Swapp Protocol
- NFT & Gaming: Duelist King, Gem Studio, Cronos Chimp Club, Crocos NFT
- Fiat on/off-ramps: Crypto.com App
- Other Infrastructure & Toolings: Covalent, Alchemy, Etherscan
[Id.].
CRO EVM FUND
"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" [Id.].
SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPER ACTIVITY
As demonstrated on the chart that follows, Cronos exhibits a healthy degree of developer activity:
VARIOUS CRONOS ACTIVITY METRICS
- Since Cronos first announced its testnet in July 2021, the platform has facilitated 1.5 million independent transactions emanating from more than 600,000 wallet addresses.
- Since it's mainnet beta launch three weeks ago, the number of Cronos wallets has surpassed 100,000.
- Since it's mainnet beta launch three weeks ago, Cronos has surpassed $1 Billion in total value locked.
- Since it's mainnet beta launch three weeks ago, there are 46 live projects on the Cronos platform.
- Since it's mainnet beta launch three weeks ago, the Cronos platform has 130,000 unique addresses.
- Since it's mainnet beta launch three weeks ago, there exists 5 protocols on the Cronos network with $50 Million TVL each.
CONCLUSION
Cronos rightfully boasts of the accomplishments it has already achieved. However, nonetheless, a review of it's 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 it's Gravity Bridge, as well as integrate additional IBC channels and expand it's IBC tokens whitelist.