Cronos Ecosystem Update: January 2022
January 2022 Highlights: New Goals for the New Year
On its third month of Mainnet Beta, Cronos continued its momentum and welcomed 2022 with a new roadmap of what it plans to achieve this year.
Here are some of the goals for Cronos’ further development:
- Transition from live beta to live by Q2 2022 after one or two further mainnet upgrades and deployment of the Gravity bridge.
- Increase block capacity by 3x to 6x for the short to medium term.
- Implement a flexible transaction fee feature from the Ethermint community on Cronos.
- Introduce additional IBC channels and features in the coming weeks.
- Launch Gravity Bridge, a decentralized bridge allowing the secure transfer of any ERC20 crypto asset from and to the Ethereum mainnet, by Q2 2022.
Read this announcement for more details about the roadmap.
January Key Statistics
Meanwhile, the Total Value Locked (TVL) in Cronos continued hovering just below $2 billion in January, retaining value amid crypto market downturns experienced during that month. This has positioned Cronos to benefit from the market recovery during the past few days, when the TVL figure finally crossed the $2 billion mark in February and is sitting comfortably above $2.2 billion currently. (Figures below are as of January 31, 2022.)
- Record-high $1.98B in TVL on January 5 (TVL has since surpassed $2B for most of February)
- Over 12 million total transactions
- Over 350,000 wallet addresses
- Over 3,500 CRC-20 tokens minted
- 26 live validators securing the network
- >120 projects live on Mainnet Beta
- 7 protocols with over $20 million TVL
- >2 billion CRO tokens bridged from Crypto.org chain to Cronos
Snapshot of the Cronos ecosystem projects as of January 28, 2022. (Courtesy of Cronos News)
New Partnerships and Supporters
The Crypto.com ecosystem has continued supporting the rollout of Cronos with more integrations such as:
- Crypto.com DeFi Wallet has integrated VVS Finance’s Glitter Mine for VVS staking. The wallet has also extended support to Cronos dApps with a browser page featuring Cronos-specific dApps.
- Meanwhile, Crypto.com App has listed Tectonic (TONIC) and integrated it into Crypto.com Earn.
Project Launches
Cronos also welcomed several notable cross-chain and native projects, as well as tooling and infrastructure partnerships, in January, such as:
Cross-chain Projects
- Theta Nuts, a Defi protocol that provides Vaults with various options strategies, launched its option vaults on Cronos.
- Chrtr, an order flow tracker currently supporting Avalanche and expanding cross-chain to support Cronos. The project was recently included in the Cronos Ecosystem Grants Program.
Native Projects
- Single Finance, a marked-to-USD DeFi yield earning platform that offers delta-neutral strategies for protecting capital by minimizing impermanent loss.
Tooling and Infrastructure Partnerships
- Apeboard, a multi-chain DeFi dashboard, supports major Cronos protocols, including Tectonic, allowing users to monitor supply and borrow positions.
Technical Development Updates
- Pre-release and testing of Cronosd ‘v0.7.0-rc1’
Bridge Updates
- Launch of a new IBC channel between Cronos and Terra to facilitate trustless interchain LUNA transfers
- Launch of LUNA on/off ramp via Crypto.com App, with support on the Crypto.com Defi wallet
- Undergoing further testing of IBC bridge infrastructure for other Cosmos-based chains
Ecosystem Initiative Updates
- Conclusion of Cronos Hackathon and the announcement of 16 winners across multiple tracks. Watch the winners’ Demo Day pitches here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
List of Cronos Hackathon winners:
1. Grand Prize Winner: #dev DeFi
2. DeFi Track: IndexZoo, Dojima Finance, Soapy Finance
3. NFT Track: Digital Verse, CRUZO, Cronos Warriors
4. Web3 Track: Defire, DexPad, Zecrey Protocol
5. Judges Select: FortuneDAO, Forart, NFTer Network, Nifty Toolkit, Metaverse Pixels, CryptoBank Africa - Announcement of the first batch of Cronos Ecosystem Grants. There were 6 recipients across the verticals of DeFi (EntropyFi, Single Finance), NFT (Agora), Gaming (Legends of Mitra), Tooling (Chrtr.io), and Community project (The Cronicle).
- Unveiling of the Cronos 2022 roadmap, covering its North Star, technical roadmap, Ecosystem incentives, and more.
Community Updates
- Cronos Ecosystem Page is now live. The Cronos Ecosystem Page is a community-managed project directory and Cronos projects can apply to be listed here.
- Three New Episodes of the Cronos AMA Sessions. Our weekly/bi-weekly AMA on Cronos Twitter Spaces continues, with Ella and Jay from Particle B Team hosting interviews with three more projects. Missed out on these AMAs? You can catch up with the AMA recordings for Theta Nuts, Ebisu’s Bay, and Annex Finance.
Ecosystem Project Roundup
- Ebisu’s Bay surpasses 10 million CRO trading volume. Ebisu’s Bay is the first NFT marketplace on Cronos.
- VVS Finance releases 2022 roadmap. The DeFi platform has also launched a new smart LP removal feature.
- Annex Finance launches new money markets. The crypto lending and borrowing platform has added new lending and borrowing markets for WETH, WBTC, and CRO.
- MM Finance announces their plans for the year ahead and a revamp to their tokenomics.
- CronaSwap released a V2 upgrade. Their V2 features a revamped UI and tokenomics.
Project Spotlight: Theta Nuts Finance
Theta Nuts helps participants gain sustainable yield through crypto-structured products. The platform provides Vaults with various options strategies, it was designed with the everyday person in mind who does not have the tools or ability to take advantage of these strategies. Currently, Theta Nuts’ WCRO Covered-Call vaults are projecting a 29.5% APY on user’s WCRO deposits. As of February 9, the platform reported $33.7 million in TVL across 29 vaults featured on its website.
See you next month with another exciting update from the Cronos team.
