Interview with Ken Timsit, Managing Director of Cronos

<h2 id="for-anyone-not-familiar,-what-is-cronos? “>For anyone not familiar, what is Cronos? 

Cronos is the 7th largest blockchain network in the world as measured by total value locked in DeFi protocols. It is the first EVM-compatible (EVM = Ethereum Virtual Machine) chain built with Cosmos technology, which means that it is able to interoperate with Ethereum and Cosmos, the two leading ecosystems for decentralized applications.

Cronos is not an attempt to create yet another so-called “Ethereum killer” from scratch. Our vision is to move beyond the blockchain wars and create an ecosystem of start-ups and end-users who can leverage the best modules from Ethereum, Cosmos, and other open-source communities. Our approach is all about interoperability and cooperation.

Crypto.com, the world’s fastest-growing crypto exchange with 50+ million users globally, is aligned with this philosophy and that is why they are a strategic partner of Cronos. Crypto.com is contributing to our open-source development and supporting the Cronos ecosystem through their product integrations.

When startup founders and developers build on Cronos, they can leverage:

• Wrapped versions of the world’s top 50 cryptocurrencies
• 18 leading self-custodial crypto wallets (including MetaMask, Crypto.com Defi Wallet, and Trust Wallet)
• Ethermint, an Ethereum Virtual Machine module built by the open-source Cosmos SDK community.
• IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication) cross-chain connectivity to Cosmos chains
• All Ethereum developer tools (Solidity, Truffle, Hardhat, OpenZeppelin, Web3.js, ethers.js, ChainSafe Gaming SDK, etc.)
• Several leading cloud infrastructure providers and indexers (Blockdaemon, Moralis, Covalent, RockX)
• Cronos Play, a suite of tools for web, Unity, Unreal, and C++ game developers
• And a rich ecosystem of 300+ composable DeFi and GameFi Dapps.

<h2 id="what-role-does-the-cro-token-play-for-cronos? “>What role does the CRO token play for Cronos? 

The token is now named Cronos (symbol: $CRO). It is the utility token that powers the economy of the Cronos ecosystem. Practically, it is the token used by end-users to pay for the modest transaction fees on Cronos, and it is also used as the base cryptocurrency for many decentralized finance applications in the Cronos ecosystem.

The health of the Cronos ecosystem underpins the utility of the Cronos ($CRO) token. Our main success indicators are the number of users on Cronos (already close to 1 million), the number of daily transactions (averaging between 200,000 and 300,000), the total value locked in DeFi protocols (exceeded 4 billion USD in April 2022), and the number of applications on Cronos (more than 300).

Additionally, the $CRO continues to be the utility and proof-of-stake token of the Crypto.org Chain, another Cosmos chain that is used by Crypto.com and others to enable loyalty rewards, crypto-payments, cheap NFT minting, and other use cases that require high transaction speed.

Crypto.com is a giant in the crypto industry, so to what extent are they supporting Cronos? 

Crypto.com has a history of contributing to open-source blockchain technology and they are a major contributor to the Cronos code base. Their talented blockchain developers, protocol engineers, and security researchers are bringing tremendous value added to the project.

Secondly, Crypto.com believes in decentralization and they want to empower users with the tools needed to experience the full promise of self-custody of crypto-assets, beyond what is available from within their platform. The self-custodial Crypto.com DeFi Wallet is a good example of such a tool.

Hence, Crypto.com is participating in a virtuous circle that benefits the Cronos ecosystem: they are making it easy for their 50 million users to use decentralized applications on Cronos, which makes the Cronos chain attractive for third-party application developers, which results in higher quality DeFi and GameFi apps that attract even more users to Cronos.

Finally, Crypto.com is investing in the broader crypto start-up ecosystem via their 500M USD venture capital arm, Crypto.com Capital. These investments are not targeted specifically at Cronos but as one of the top ecosystems for DeFi and GameFi start-ups, Cronos benefits its fair share.

<h2 id="what-are-some-examples-of-applications-currently-running-on-cronos? “>What are some examples of applications currently running on Cronos? 

The top DeFi applications are the core primitives you would expect to find on any of the leading chains: decentralized exchanges like VVS, Ferro, and MM Finance, and decentralized lending protocols such as Tectonic and Mimas Finance.

In addition to these primitives, a range of other applications aims to make it easier for end-users to optimize the yield on their cryptos: Single Finance with their pseudo-market-neutral strategy, Beefy Finance with their multi-chain yield optimizer, and Autofarm with their yield aggregator.

On the NFT, GameFi, and Metaverse side, we can find Ebisu’s Bay, the top NFT marketplace on Cronos and one of the leading marketplaces across all chains. DG Pals is a popular game; it is a puppy-themed blockchain game that allows players to use their NFTs for quests and battles. There are more than 10 other significant games in development, and we expect more to come, given that our Cronos Accelerator Program, backed by a 100M USD fund, and the hackathon we are sponsoring with Moralis currently, both have a big focus on gaming and NFTs.

<h2 id="what-are-you-doing-for-interoperability? “>What are you doing for interoperability? 

Cronos is interoperable with all other Ethereum-compatible chains at the protocol level. Developers can take any application they have developed for Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, and others and quickly deploy the same smart contracts to Cronos.

When transferring tokens to and from Cronos, the safest and most convenient way is via a Crypto.com account, which connects to all the important chains and supports all the leading cryptocurrencies on Cronos.

We have recently started testing the Cronos Gravity Bridge, poised to become the canonical token bridge between Cronos and Ethereum mainnet. It will be available to end-users soon. Meanwhile, there are independent bridges connecting Cronos to other EVM chains, such as Connext.

Finally, Cronos supports IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication), a safe protocol to transfer cryptocurrencies between Cosmos chains. Cronos is currently connected to Cosmos Hub and Akash, and we are very open to supporting more channels whenever there is demand.

<h2 id="obviously,-the-layer-one-space-is-very-competitive,-what-is-cronos-doing-to-capture-market-share? “>Obviously, the layer one space is very competitive, what is Cronos doing to capture market share? 

In the current bear market, users and developers value consistency and reliability. Cronos is already a leading chain, and, with Crypto.com’s support, it is here to stay. We will continue building for years, and it will pay off.

Regarding end-users, our primary focus is on easy fiat to crypto on-ramp and ease of use. The integration with Crypto.com and their 50 million users, as well as with 18 wallets and counting, is helping tremendously. I find it much easier to add crypto to my self-custodial wallet on Cronos than on any other chain.

When it comes to application developers, if they are practically minded, they value this addressable user base immensely as a unique selling point of Cronos. We believe that the best thing we can do for them is to help put their applications in the hands of users so that they can collect feedback and achieve product/market fit. We also have developer support programs, such as the Cronos Ecosystem Grants and the Cronos Accelerator Program, backed by a 100M USD ecosystem fund.

<h2 id="what-comes-next-for-cronos? “>What comes next for Cronos? 

We will continue to invest in the protocol and infrastructure to make it faster, cheaper, and more eco-friendly.

On the DeFi side, we encourage start-ups to create trading and lending protocols that are more capital efficient and sustainable long-term without relying so much on early adopter incentives.

On the GameFi side, we have made many partnerships and integration announcements recently: Unity, Unreal, ChainSafe, Moralis, DG Pals, Binemon, Demole, Dragon SB, Revolve Games, Decentral Games, Dexi, etc. I am now looking forward to the actual product launches in the coming weeks.

Ultimately, Cronos aims at being a bridge between disparate blockchain ecosystems in order to facilitate the mainstream adoption of Web3.