On May 1st or maybe a day before I saw a notification from the Crypto.com app on my phone.
I receive enough notifications from them, including for high price variations of my favorite tokens.
The notifications I like the most from them are the ones regarding CRO rewards received for purchases made with their VISA card, and the ones regarding payments for staking rewards.
Both of which are benefits associated with my Royal Indigo card.
Well, guess what? Both of them are taking a hit for long-term sustainability reasons. Looks like another aggressive marketing campaign scaling down. Not saying I wasn't expecting it.
1. Reduction of CRO Card Rewards
Here are the revised CRO Card Rewards:
Screenshot from their email.
Here's how they look now before the changes are in effect.
With Active Stake:
Without Active Stake:
That's quite a slashing! And it's not all.
2. Introduction of monthly CRO Card rewards cap
Not only did the CRO rewards get slashed, but now there is a monthly cap on them for Ruby Steel and Royal Indigo / Jade Green.
Screenshot from their email.
Ok, this doesn't bother me much. In a normal month, I don't think I reach that cap. And I'm sure there was plenty of abuse of these CRO rewards. Someone could even buy a car or something expensive within a 25k USD limit and receive a percentage back as CRO rewards.
3. Phasing out Reducing Card CRO staking rewards
From Royal Indigo / Jade Green card tier upwards, with an active stake, cardholders currently receive 10% APR staking rewards on their CRO.
The intention stated in their initial email was to phase out (i.e. remove) these staking rewards entirely.
After protests (I assume), and a crash in the price of CRO, they came back with an updated version, where some staking rewards are still paid, but not as high.
So, in my case, going down from 10% to 4%.
After adding all the screenshots from emails in this post, I found a link to a blog post published on their website, where you can consult full details.
I have to say it didn't take me by surprise. Maybe the extent of the reductions. But otherwise, the level of CRO rewards they offered on purchases was much higher than the competition, as far as I know.
It's interesting they make such a big case about the 10% staking rewards (for mid-higher tier cards nonetheless) when the APR for CRO/OSMO is above 60% on Osmosis. True, that is paid in OSMO, not in CRO, but one can swap OSMO to CRO if desired. And the APR is still 60%+.
Well, the good part is there isn't much more room to cut, competition is waiting and it's hungrier than they are.