After a lot of hard work, rigorous testing, and steady support from their partners and the developer community, Crypto.com is pleased to confirm the introduction of the Cronos mainnet beta (on November 8, 2021).
Cronos is reportedly the first Cosmos Ethereum Virtual Machine or EVM chain for decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Metaverse.
It aims to effectively scale the DeFi and decentralized application (dApp) ecosystem, by offering developers with the option to easily port apps from Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains. With low cost, high throughput, fast finality, and built-in interoperability, Cronos is set to bring decentralized applications “to the 10M+ user base of the Crypto.com ecosystem and beyond,” according to an update shared with CI.
Leveraging Cosmos SDK, Cronos comes with 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,” the announcement explained.
CRO is the native token of the Cronos platform, “powering on-chain transactions with network fees paid in CRO,” the announcement noted while adding that 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 being shipped with the Ethereum Virtual Machine that is able to 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,” the update confirmed.
Up-to-date Cosmos SDK with IBC support
As stated in the update:
“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 Cronos network when deposit and withdrawal, and from Crypto.org chain to Cronos via IBC channel,” the update explained.
As noted in the announcement:
“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 Crypto.org chain and Cronos chain. It is a fully decentralized protocol utilising 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.”
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
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
As noted in the announcement:
“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