After months of hard work, extensive testing, and tremendous support from our partners and the developer community, we are excited to announce the launch of Cronos mainnet beta today!
Cronos is the first Cosmos EVM chain for DeFi, NFTs, and Metaverse. It aims to massively scale the DeFi and decentralized application ecosystem by providing developers with the ability to instantly port apps from Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains. With low cost, high throughput, fast finality, and built-in interoperability, Cronos is poised to bring decentralized applications to the 10M+ user base of the Crypto.com ecosystem and beyond.
Leveraging Cosmos SDK, Cronos has built-in interoperability from day one. Its Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol enables interoperability and bridging to the Crypto.org Chain and other IBC-enabled chains (e.g., Cosmos Hub). Cronos is uniquely positioned linking the Cosmos ecosystem and EVM ecosystem.
CRO is the native token of the Cronos platform, powering on-chain transactions with network fees paid in CRO. 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 Mainnet Beta (Scope)
EVM support
Cronos Mainnet is shipped with the Ethereum Virtual Machine that can execute user-submitted smart contract codes. It is compatible with the EVM on Ethereum, which means developers can port their smart contracts from Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains to Cronos without hassle.
Up-to-dated Cosmos SDK with IBC support
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.
Bridge
The token standard on Cronos is CRC-20. At launch, users could bridge selected tokens from Crypto.com App and Exchange by simply selecting the Cronos network when depositing and withdrawing and from the Crypto.org chain to Cronos via the IBC channel.
For users that are bridging CRO from Crypto.org to Cronos, the Cronos Bridge will be available from day 1 for users to do so. The Cronos bridge supports fast, secure, and low-cost transfers between the Crypto.org chain and the Cronos chain. It is a fully decentralized protocol utilizing the IBC module and Gravity module within the Cosmos SDK. As both Crypto.Org and Cronos are IBC enabled chains, your CRO will be routed from Crypto.org to Cronos in the IBC token standard before being wrapped into the native CRO on the Cronos EVM level.
I’m Available bridging routes into Cronos on Day 1:
- Transfer assets using Crypto.com App
- Transfer assets using Crypto.com Exchange
- Transfer assets from Crypto.org Chain through Cronos Bridge here
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Bridge Roadmap:
- More IBC Channels: From other Cosmos based chains to Cronos [ETA Dec’ 21 / Jan’ 22]
- Cronos Gravity Bridge: From Ethereum to Cronos [ETA: Dec’ 21 / Jan’ 22]
Cronos Ecosystem
A growing ecosystem is supporting the launch of Cronos and building decentralized applications on the Cronos infrastructure. Our team has announced partnerships with the following key industry players, with more to come:
- 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
- NFT & Gaming: Duelist King, Gem Studio, Cronos Chimp Club, Crocos NFT
- Fiat on/off-ramps: Crypto.com App
- Other Infrastructure & Toolings: Covalent, Alchemy, Etherscan
Start building on Cronos
Developer resources
$100M Ecosystem Grant Program
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. More details on the Grant Program.
Cronos Hackathon
The very first Cronos Hackathon is currently running from 24 September to 24 November to encourage developers and entrepreneurs to contribute ideas and early-stage projects to the Cronos ecosystem. A total prize pool of USD $500,000 will be awarded to top participating projects in 5 tracks – DeFi, NFT, GameFi, Web3, and Metaverse. We welcome developers around the world to build with us! More details on the hackathon.
Bounty Program
The Cronos bug bounty program will begin soon, with a maximum bounty of up to USD 1,337,133.7 sponsored by Blockchain accelerator Particle B, to enhance the on-chain security of the Cronos ecosystem. Details – Link.
What’s next?
We will continue working on further improving and optimizing the network infrastructure and towards full mainnet launch. Some of the workstreams include:
Bridging Cosmos assets to Cronos
As a part of the Cosmos community, we are looking into bridging more Cosmos-based Chain tokens to Cronos through IBC. One major challenge is the ability to use IBC assets as an EVM tokens, and the Cronos core developers have already implemented some basic support on Cronos.
Rolling out Gravity Bridge
Gravity Bridge is an innovative and promising bridge solution bringing Ethereum-based chain assets to the Cronos. After the mainnet beta is launched, one of the milestones is to bring an improved Gravity Bridge onto the testnet soon and eventually roll it out on the mainnet.
Cronos upgrade
There are many exciting features to be included in future versions. Based on the feedback on the community, the Cronos development team will continue to improve and optimize the blockchain.
We would like to thank our amazing partners and community for your support along the journey. We are going full speed ahead, and welcome everyone to build the future of Cronos with us! Stay tuned for updates from our social media.
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Twitter – Follow @cronos_chain on Twitter.
Discord – Join the Crypto.org Chain Discord in the #cronos channel.
Telegram – See the latest update on Crypto.org Chain Telegram channel.
