What is the Crypto․com cryptocurrency ecosystem and the Cronos blockchain?

On November 8, the Crypto.com project team announced the launch of the Cronos main network, which allows developerstransfer applications from Ethereum and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain to the Crypto.org Chain.

Crypto.com is one of the largest projects on the crypto market, offering a range of products, including the Visa crypto payment card. Against this background, CRO - the native coin of the Crypto.com network - reached its all-time high at $ 0.41 and climbed to 26th place in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization according to CoinMarketCap.

We figured out how the Cronos network works, how the Crypto.com ecosystem is developing and what are the prospects for the project.

Briefly about the company Сrypto․com

Crypto․com is a Hong Kong blockchain platform,offering users a whole ecosystem of products. It includes payment, trade and financial services such as a crypto exchange and a decentralized trading platform (DEX), a crypto wallet, a credit protocol, a crypto bank, its own cryptocurrencies and tokens, payment solutions, a Visa crypto card, an NFT platform, a mobile application and a number of investment products.

The project was launched in June 2016 under the nameMonaco by experienced entrepreneur Chris Marszalek. In July 2018, the company bought the Crypto․com domain and rebranded it. In 2017, the company raised $26.7 million during its ICO. Since then, the project has attracted approximately $175 million in venture capital investments.

It is worth noting that the Crypto․com ecosystem is verygrowing quickly. In September 2019, the Crypto․com trading platform reached 1 million users, a year later it served 5 million clients, and now it serves 10 million. The company’s application is one of the most popular payment applications in the USA and Singapore.

One of the reasons for this rapid growth isactive marketing. Crypto․com has been advertised at Formula 1, the UFC mixed martial arts league, and has partnered with Aston Martin F1 racing team, Philadelphia 76ers basketball club, Paris Saint-Germain football club , esports organization Fnatic and Fox Sports. Last year, Crypto․com spent about $ 500 million on sponsorship deals. At the same time, actor Matt Damon is now the face of the project.

Crypto․com commercial featuring Matt Damon with the slogan: "Fortune favors the brave!":

Crypto․com product ecosystem

Сrypto․com provides users with a developed ecosystem of crypto products. Let's take a closer look at them.

Сrypto․com App— mobile application for exchange, trading andstorage of more than 150 crypto assets. It also supports seven fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBR, HKD, JPY, SGD, AUD) and allows you to order and manage crypto cards from Visa. Along with crypto cards, Visa is one of the company's flagship products.

Сrypto․com Exchange— a crypto exchange where, in addition to traditionalCryptocurrency trading options also include margin trading and crypto derivatives. All funds of crypto exchange users are stored in cold wallets; assets of US citizens up to $250,000 are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Сrypto․com Card Visa- a range of prepaid Visa cards that support a dozen cryptocurrencies and 6 fiat currencies - euro, pound, US, Canadian, Hong Kong and Singapore dollars.

Crypto․com has five card levels:Midnight Blue, Ruby Steel, Royal Indigo and Jade Green, Frosted Rose Gold and Icy White, Obsidian. Each of the tiers has its own rewards and privileges, which are determined by the number of CRO tokens held by the cardholder.

So, for example, the first level of Midnight mapsBlue - 1% cashback, there are no commissions for ATM withdrawals of $ 200 per month and a limit on international transfers of $ 2,000 per month. At the next level, these indicators are twice as high - 2% cashback, a $ 400 limit for withdrawals without commissions and $ 4,000 for international transfers, as well as 100% cashback for paying for the Spotify streaming service. Other rewards also include 100% cashback on Netflix and Amazon Prime, 10% off Airbnb and Expedia, and free airport lounge access.

To reserve the Crypto․com Card Visa,users must pass a KYC check and also stake CRO tokens for 6 months in the Crypto․com App. For now, cards are only available to residents of the USA, Canada, UK, Singapore and EU countries.

Crypto Earn— a deposit product that allows usersearn up to 14.5% per annum for storing your crypto assets. More than 40 cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, as well as DeFi tokens, are available for earning. The highest rates are for CRO.

Сrypto․com Pay— mobile payment system based on Crypto․comChain, built into the Crypto․com App. The payment system allows you to make purchases and pay with cryptocurrency. At the same time, sellers themselves choose in what form to receive funds - in fiat or cryptocurrency. For them, cooperation with the service is beneficial: they do not pay a commission for processing payments in cryptocurrency, and when receiving fiat money, they save up to 80% on commissions compared to traditional payment systems. More than 300 gift cards are also available to users.

Сrypto․com Lending— a credit product that allows you to instantlyreceive a loan without a payment deadline and credit check. To receive a loan, you need to deposit collateral in CRO, BTC, ETH and other selected assets. The loan will be issued in stablecoins TUSD, USDC, USDT. You can borrow up to 50% of your deposit.

Сrypto․com DeFi- DeFi service with non-custodial wallet, deposit product and swap (exchange) of DeFi tokens.

Сrypto․com NFT- the company has signed exclusive agreements for the release of branded NFTs with Aston Martin F1, rapper Snoop Dogg, musicians Boy George and Axel Mansour, among others.

Crypto. com Tax— service for calculating taxes on income from cryptocurrencies.

Syndicate— platform for fundraising or additionaltoken sales. Сrypto․com does not charge any fees to projects conducting token sales on Syndicate. In return, the developers provide Crypto․com users with the exclusive right to buy native tokens of the project at a 50% discount. The site hosted token sales of projects such as FLOW, Filecoin, Matic, Zilliqa and NEO. Moreover, the larger the CRO stake and the user’s trading volume, the more assets he can buy at a discount.

What makes Cronos unique?

Cronos is a decentralized publicAn open-source blockchain platform designed to instantly transfer decentralized applications (dApps) between Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks. EVM is a virtual global computer that allows different networks to communicate with each other. The testnet launched in July, and the Cronos mainnet launched on November 8th.

The Cronos network is built on elements of the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem, namely:

Tendermint Core is a software implementation of the special Tendermint BFT consensus algorithm, which allows projects to develop and launch a secure blockchain in just a few weeks;
The Cosmos SDK is a set of tools for developers that makes it easier to write code and allows you to bring almost any blockchain into the Cosmos ecosystem;
Ethermint network - EVM in the Cosmos SDK. It is compatible with all Ethereum instruments (tokens, wallets, smart contracts) and EVM-compatible blockchains;
Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) is a protocol that allows the blockchains of the Cosmos ecosystem to interact with each other, exchange data and coins.

We've previously detailed how the Cosmos ecosystem works.

Cronos provides users and developersquick and easy migration of their applications and smart contracts from EVM-compatible blockchains to the Cronos network or to the Crypto.org Chain network (more about it below). CRO is a native token used for all payments on the network, as well as in Crypto.org Chain and the Crypto․com ecosystem.

Cronos' goal is to scale the crypto ecosystem.com, facilitating the migration of DeFi and NFT projects to it. Cronos can process more transactions per minute than Ethereum, making the process of executing smart contracts faster, cheaper and greener. The project team intends to provide every possible support to developers who will use Cronos, and hopes to soon see an explosion of activity on this network.

To achieve consensus, Cronos usesProof-of-Authority algorithm (PoA, proof of authority), taking into account the “merits” and rating of validators. There is no mining on the network, the power of the equipment and the number of validator coins are not important - only their reputation matters. A fixed number of validators, pre-selected by the development team, are involved in confirming transactions.

Despite the very recent launch of the mainnet, a full-fledged ecosystem has already begun to take shape around Cronos. Here are some projects that have already entered into partnerships with Cronos or integrated their solutions into the network:

22 validatorsincluding Bison Trails, Allnodes, Audit.one, CRO Nest, Crypto.bzh, Stakespace, Staking.Cafe, SwissCro, X Staking;
Decentralized oracles:Chainlink, Band Protocol and Blink Oracle are integrated into the Cronos network;
Cross-chain bridges:Nerve, cBridge and AnySwap allow you to move tokens of different standards between blockchains;
Wallets:Metamask, Сrypto․com DeFi Wallet, Nabox, Trust Wallet
DeFi:VVS Finance, Tectonic, CRODEX, CronaSwap, PhotonSwap, Annex Finance, Swapp Protocol;
NFT and Gaming:Duelist King, Gem Studio, Cronos Chimp Club, Crocos NFT.

To further support the Cronos ecosystemblockchain accelerator project partner Particle B has launched a grant program of $100 million: 100 projects launched in Cronos will receive $1 million. From September 24 to November 24, the first Cronos hackathon (developer competition) is being held with a total prize fund of $500,000.

The Cronos team has already announced its immediate plans forproject development. These include merging the assets of the Cosmos network with Cronos through IBC, launching new bridges between blockchains, and expanding the functionality of the network.

Blockchain Crypto.org Chain and tokens MCO and CRO

Crypto.org Chain is a decentralized Crypto․com blockchain, the mainnet of which was launched in March 2021. It, like Cronos, is built on the Cosmos ecosystem. As a result, the network can carry out up to 50,000 transactions per second, which is one of the best indicators on the market. Crypto.org Chain is designed with a focus on mobile payments, used by Crypto.org Pay, and supports merchant and DeFi solutions.

Crypto.org Chain is based on the Delegated Proof-of-Syake (DPoS) consensus algorithm, which allows CRO holders to delegate their tokens to pre-selected validators, who verify and add transactions to blocks.

There are two types of nodes in Crypto.org Chain:

Validator nodes that are responsible for verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the chain.
Full nodes that extract data from the blockchain and pass it on to validator nodes.

On the Crypto network.org Chain has a fixed number of validators - 100. They are selected from the largest holders of CRO coins. For their work, validators receive two types of remuneration: for performing the work of verifying transactions and generating new blocks in the blockchain, as well as transaction fees.

The Crypto․com ecosystem uses a system withtwo cryptocurrencies: Monaco coin (MCO) and Crypto․com Coin (CRO). Initially, in 2017, the Crypto․com platform launched the MCO coin, which was used during the ICO. It was the native Crypto․com cryptocurrency, which was used in all network functions of the site and for payments by cryptocard.

Later the company began to develop a new, moreperfect coin - CRO. At first it was an ERC-20 token, but in March of this year CRO switched to its own blockchain, Crypto.org Chain. CRO is now used to pay transaction fees, trading and financial services, asset conversion (as a medium of exchange when converting two crypto assets), staking and payment of rewards to validators. Coin holders receive privileges in the Crypto․com ecosystem: they pay reduced transaction commissions and trading fees when using the exchange, they earn more on staking, lending and cashback from crypto cards.

In 2020, the developers intended to swap MCO for CRO and switch to using only the latter by the end of the year. After this, the MCO would no longer perform any official functions.

Reasons for abandoning two native cryptocurrenciesare clear: developing one ecosystem coin is much easier, it is more convenient for users (no need to worry about the price of two assets or the need to exchange between them to gain access to various services). In addition, it reduces regulatory risk in the event that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) retrospectively deems the Crypto.org ICO to be an unregistered sale of securities.

But switch to one cryptocurrency for the Crypto team.org failed. The company offered an unfavorable exchange rate - early MCO holders and those who bought it at higher prices than at the time of the swap found themselves at a loss. This caused a wave of discontent, after which the company decided not to abandon the MCO.

Therefore, the Crypto․com ecosystem still hastwo coins. But MCO is practically not developing, and all significant functions have been transferred to CRO, including conducting transactions using a crypto card and paying cashback on them. Nevertheless, investors believe in the potential of both cryptocurrencies. Over the past year, CRO has increased in price by 5 times, and MCO by 6.4 times.

What is the Crypto․com cryptocurrency ecosystem and the Cronos blockchain?

Platform Perspectives

Crypto․com is a developed crypto ecosystem thatclaims to satisfy all financial needs of users. The site pays special attention to safety and offers fund insurance for many products. Management listens to users - and the platform continues to support MCO, despite the fact that it is not very profitable for it. The company does not stand still, constantly adding new products and following trends. The trust of 10 million people is completely justified.

Therefore, the future of MCO and, above all, CROlooks quite light. So far, in terms of growth rates, tokens are far behind the market leaders. If the situation changes, they may soon grow several times more. But investors in these tokens should remember that their value is entirely dependent on the success of Crypto․com and its ecosystem.

Where is it more profitable to buy cryptocurrency? TOP-5 exchanges

For a safe and convenient purchase of cryptocurrencies with a minimum commission, we have prepared a rating of the most reliable and popular cryptocurrency exchanges that support deposits and withdrawals of funds inrubles, hryvnias, dollars and euros.

The reliability of the site is primarily determinedtrading volume and number of users. By all key metrics, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world is Binance. Binance is also the most popular crypto exchange in Russia and the CIS, since it has the largest cash turnover and supports transfers in rubles from bank cardsVisa / MasterCardand payment systemsQIWI, Advcash, Payeer.

Especially for beginners, we have prepared a detailed guide: How to buy bitcoin on a crypto exchange for rubles?

Rating of cryptocurrency exchanges:

#	Exchange:	Website:	Rating:
1	Binance (Editor's Choice)	https://binance.com	9.7
2	Huobi	https://huobi.com	7.4
3	Exmo	https://exmo.me	6.9
4	OKEx	https://okex.com	6.5
5	Bybit	https://bybit.com	6.3

The criteria by which the rating is set in our rating of crypto-exchanges:

Work reliability— stability of access to all functions of the platform, including uninterrupted trading, deposits and withdrawals of funds, as well as the duration of the market and daily trading volume.
Commissions– the amount of commission for trading operations within the platform and withdrawal of assets.
Additional features and services— futures, options, staking, NFT marketplace.
Feedback and support– we analyze user reviews and the quality of technical support.
Convenience of the interface– we evaluate the functionality and intuitiveness of the interface, possible errors and failures when working with the exchange.
final grade– the average number of points for all indicators determines the place in the ranking.