How to buy Cronos (CRO)
Beginner’s Guide
Cronos was launched by the Crypto.com company as part of its vision of “putting cryptocurrency in every wallet.” Crypto.com itself was founded in June 2016 as “Monaco Technologies GmbH” by Kris Marszalek, Rafael Melo, Gary Or and Bobby Bao.
How to Buy Cronos Summary
- Get a Cronos wallet (e.g. Ledger, Trezor ,Guardia, Exodus , AtomicWallet)
- Find an exchange that sells Cronos (e.g. Crypo.com , Okex, Coinbase, Kucoin, CEX.io)
- Deposit money and make the trade
- Withdraw the Cronos to your wallet
What Is Cronos [CRO]?
Cronos (CRO) is the native cryptocurrency token of Cronos Chain — a decentralized, open-source blockchain developed by the Crypto.com payment, trading and financial services company.
Cronos Chain is one of the products in Crypto.com’s lineup of solutions designed to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrencies as a means of increasing personal control over money, safeguarding user data and protecting users’ identities. The CRO blockchain serves primarily as a vehicle that powers the Crypto.com Pay mobile payments app.
In the future, Crypto.com plans to expand the reach of the CRO platform to power its other products as well.
CRO went live in November-December 2018.
Buying Cronos (CRO) in 3 Simple Steps
Step 1 – Get a Cronos wallet
Cronos Hardware Wallets
The best option for storing any cryptocurrency would be to use a hardware wallet. These are pieces of hardware that store the private key to your coins offline.
Today, there are two leading hardware manufacturers to choose from – Ledger and TREZOR. Both companies have different models of hardware wallets that will get the job done.
If you want deeper insights on specific models, you can read my Ledger Nano X review or my TREZOR Model T review.
Cronos Software Wallets
Hardware wallets cost money, so if you’re not sure how serious you are about cryptocurrencies and just want to get a taste of what they feel like, perhaps you would be better off starting with a software wallet.
A software wallet is a free program that lets you store your coins on your computer or mobile phone.
The easiest Cronos software wallets to get started with are undoubtedly Exodus, AtomicWallet and Guarda . All wallets are very intuitive. Exodus, Atomic Wallet and Guarda is available on desktop for Windows, Mac and Linux, as well as on mobile for both iOS and Android. If you want more information you can read my Exodus, AtomicWallet and Guarda review.
Step 2 – Find an CRO Exchange
Buy Cronos through Crypto.com
- Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency exchange company based in Singapore. As of May 2022, the company reportedly had 50 million customers and 4,000 employees. The exchange issues a token, Cronos.The company was initially founded in Hong Kong by Bobby Bao, Gary Or, Kris Marszalek, and Rafael Melo in 2016 as “Monaco”. In 2018, the company was renamed as Crypto.com following a purchase of a domain owned by cryptography researcher and professor Matt Blaze. Domain sellers valued the domain at US$5–10 million.
Buy Cronos through Okex
- OKX (Chinese: 欧易), formerly known as OKEx, is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange and derivatives exchange. It was founded by Star Xu (徐明星) in 2017. OKX is owned by Ok Group, which also owns crypto exchange Okcoin. It is not available to US based investors. The company’s CEO is Jay Hao and CMO is Haider Rafique. Initially headquartered in Beijing, China, OKX is now under a blanket ban by Chinese regulators. On October 13, 2021, it issued a “Notice on Regulatory Policy in Mainland China”, announcing that it would continue its policy of “withdrawing from the Chinese mainland market” and would not establish an office or team in the region. However, according to Caixin, although the exchange officially announced that it would no longer set up an office in Mainland China, it still has a large number of R&D staff working in the region, including engineers, who continue to work for OKX in the form of third-party outsourcing companies.
Buy Cronos through Coinbase
- Coinbase is a convenient and cheap way to buy Ethereum and the platform is open to 200+ countries). Coinbase will sell you CRO for a variable fee that depends on your payment method (credit cards have a higher fee than wire transfers), order size and market volatility. Here’s how you buy Ethereum on Coinbase: Open a Coinbase account Add your payment method (Credit card or bank account) Go to “Buy/Sell” and select the amount of Ethereum you desire Click “Buy Cronos”
Buy Cronos through Kucoin
- Kucoin is a global cryptocurrency exchange for numerous digital assets and cryptocurrencies. Launched in September 2017, KuCoin has grown into one of the most popular crypto exchanges and already has over 8 million registered users from 700+ countries and regions. According to Alexa traffic ranking, KuCoin’s monthly unique ranking is in the top 5 globally. Known as the “People’s Exchange”, KuCoin operates in Seychelles, providing users with multi-language and 24/7 customer service. Meanwhile, KuCoin has established local communities all over the world in South Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia, India, and other regions, providing users with the most local services. Currently, 1 out of every 4 crypto holders in the world is with KuCoin.
Buy Cronos through CEX.io
- Cex.io is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to buy Cronos with a credit card. If you use the company’s brokerage service (buying directly from the exchange) the fees will already be calculated into the exchange rate, that’s why it will seem higher than other exchanges. If you want to get better rates, try using the site’s trading platform (suited for more advanced users). Open a CEX.io account Add your payment method (Credit card or bank account) Navigate to “Instant Buy” and select Cronos Choose the amount of Cronos you want to buy Click on “Buy” and complete the purchase
Step 3: Withdrawing your CRO Tokens
After you’ve purchased your CRO tokens, you’ll want to keep them safe by withdrawing them to your own wallet.
Navigate to your CRO account balance page on the exchange, and select “withdraw”. Copy and paste your new wallet address (from Step 1 above) into the withdrawal address field and always double check address before send coins because you can send the coins to wrong address. Once this is complete, you’ll have full control over your CRO tokens. They’ll be out of the hands of the exchange, and well away from any online hackers.
Overview
Who Are the Founders of Cronos?
Cronos was launched by the Crypto.com company as part of its vision of “putting cryptocurrency in every wallet.” Crypto.com itself was founded in June 2016 as “Monaco Technologies GmbH” by Kris Marszalek, Rafael Melo, Gary Or and Bobby Bao.
Kris Marszalek, an alum of the Polish Adam Mickiewicz University, has founded and headed three companies prior to starting Crypto.com: consumer electronics design and manufacturing business Starline Polska, location-based service mobile app and platform YIYI and the e-commerce firm BEECRAZY.
Rafael Melo earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from the PUC-Rio. Over his more than 15-year-long career in finance, Melo has worked with major companies in Asia and helped secure over 50 million AUD in funding for the Ensogo social commerce website.
Gary Or is a software engineer with over nine years of fullstack engineering experience. Prior to co-founding Crypto.com, Or worked as platform architect at Ensogo and co-founded the mobile app development firm Foris. He received his bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science from the University of Hong Kong.
Before helping launch Crypto.com, Bobby Bao worked in the M&A department of the China Renaissance investment bank. Bao has studied at the University of Melbourne, NYU Stern School of Business and the College of William & Mary.
What Makes Cronos Unique?
CRO blockchain is mainly focused on providing utility to the users of Crypto.com’s payment, trading and financial services solutions.
CRO owners can stake their coins on the Crypto.com Chain to act as a validator and earn fees for processing transactions on the network. Additionally, CRO coins can be used to settle transaction fees on the Cronos Chain.
Within the framework of the Crypto.com Pay payments app, users can get cashback of up to 20% by paying merchants in CRO and up to 10% by purchasing gift cards and making peer-to-peer transfers to other users.
When it comes to trading use cases, the Crypto.com App allows users to earn token rewards for select listings by staking CRO.
Additionally, users can earn annual interest of up to 10-12% on their Crypto.com Coins by staking them on either the Crypto.com Exchange app or Crypto.com’s metal Visa Card.
Overall, CRO acts as an instrument that powers Crypto.com’s drive to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies on a global scale. As such, the company is continuously working on finding and developing new use cases that will allow users to leverage the cryptocurrency to enhance the control they have over their money, data and identities.
Cronos Chain
Cronos Chain, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, was recently launched to run in parallel to Crypto.org blockchain. This is comparable to Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain (EVM-compatible). Cronos Chain’s mainnet beta went live on Nov. 8, 2021, and is built on the Cosmos SDK, utilizing a proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism. Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility means that the thousands of DApps built on Ethereum can be ported on to the Cronos Chain. Furthermore, it also supports the Inter Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol, which allows it to bridge to the Cosmos ecosystem of DApps.
Despite the recent launch, growth in total value locked (TVL) has skyrocketed, reaching a high of over US$2B in less than 3 months. This could be partly attributed to the Particle B $100M CRO EVM fund, which incentivizes developers to build on Cronos. $CRO token prices also rallied by over 350% since the launch, reaching a high of $0.96. Bridge between Ethereum and Cosmos is expected to come in the near future.
Expanded Utility of Cronos (CRO)
Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com continues to maintain that Cronos (CRO) (formerly called Crypto.com Coin) remains one of their major contributions to pushing blockchain and Web 3.0 forward.
Crypto.com launched Cronos Chain as an EVM-compatible sidechain of its flagship Crypto.org Chain. Both chains, as well as the exchange, utilize CRO tokens for various uses.
How Cronos Chain Has Given CRO a Leg Up?
Cronos Chain hosts various decentralized applications (dApps) and has a total value locked (TVL) of over $781.86 million, at the time of writing, making it one of the largest EVM-compatible chains. It is the first blockchain that enables interoperability between the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems.
Some of the Cronos Chain dApps driving the adoption of CRO by using it as the main payment method for transactions include VVS Finance, Tectonic Finance, Ferro Protocol, MM Finance and Single Finance.