It’s been so long since I last wrote about the Crypto.com Coin that it now goes by Cronos (CRO-USD). It is now the native token of the Crypto.org chain and Cronos Ethereum (ETH-USD) Virtual Machine (EVM) chain.
Crypto.org launched Cronos in November. Here’s what the Cronos team had to say about the rebranding that took place on Feb. 18:
“Cronos is a EVM-compatible chain designed to support the Creator Economy with applications such as DeFi and GameFi, ultimately serving as foundational infrastructure for the Metaverse,” stated its blog post on Medium about the rebranding
“Cronos delivers dramatically faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum mainnet, making decentralized applications (DApps) and smart contracts more user and environment friendly.”
Buzzy but Still Growing
Did you catch all the buzz words used in the two-sentence explanation?
- Creator economy
- DeFi (decentralized finance)
- GameFi (game finance)
- Metaverse
- Decentralized applications (DApps)
- Smart contracts
- Environment friendly
Cronos has seen more than 350,000 unique wallet addresses perform transactions on the chain over the past three months. Additionally, more than 120 DApps have chosen it for their projects.
In 2022, it wants to become one of the top five public blockchains by total value locked (TVL).
While that’s all very exciting, I see a problem with the rebranding. Let me explain.
Does Crypto.com Arena Become Cronos Arena?
As I said in December, Crypto.com paying $700 million for the naming rights for the former Staples Center in Los Angeles might be a financially sound marketing initiative. Still, it didn’t suddenly make Crypto.com Coin worth buying.
Here’s a quote from CoinShares International Chief Strategy Officer Meltem Demirors that I included for readers:
“‘The resulting PR doubled its token price and led to a US$9 billion run-up in market cap,’ Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares International Ltd., said on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR). ‘The deal paid for itself ~13x over, difficult to untangle token distribution and who benefited, but smart token marketing strategy!’ Bloomberg reported.”
A significant portion of the run-up Demirors mentioned has evaporated over the past three months. Worse still, if Crypto.com obtained the naming rights to give the token a marketing and public relations push, all of that’s gone out the window with the Cronos rebranding.
Unless, of course, Crypto.com Arena becomes Cronos Arena. Not living in LA, I quickly checked the arena’s website. It says it’s still Cryto.com Arena.
Perhaps in the future.
What’s the End Game?
The Medium post I referenced in the introduction said that Crypto.org changed the name to “[reflect] the decentralized nature of CRO and recognizes the explosive growth of the Cronos ecosystem.”
Again with the superlatives. Can anybody in digital assets speak plainly? I’m not sure.
For anyone thinking about buying their first cryptocurrency — I’m in that camp — what is one supposed to make of this move? Is it a way for Crypto.com to pivot away from its cryptocurrency exchange without losing face? Or, is it the proper recognition of the growth and adoption of Web3?
Honestly, I haven’t paid any attention to this cryptocurrency in 2022, so I’m not the one to answer these questions. However, hopefully, the answers will reveal themselves in the weeks ahead.
The Motley Fool’s Chris MacDonald seems to believe Crypto.org made the move to let investors know that Cronos is more than just a cryptocurrency exchange.
Now I’m perplexed. I thought Crypto.com was the crypto exchange. If the move was meant to confuse people, it’s done a pretty good job.
The Bottom Line on Cronos
How do I know people are confused about the rebranding? It’s simple.
InvestorPlace’s Nicolas Chahine, one of the site’s brightest contributors, recently discussed why buying more Crypto.com Coin over time makes sense. And maybe it does.
However, if Chahine didn’t realize the change happened in mid-February despite being well-versed in the markets, it’s pretty apparent Crypto.org didn’t do a very good job getting the word out.
I couldn’t recommend CRO-USD in December and I can’t recommend it now. I’ve got to learn more about this rebranding and why it really happened. For me, something doesn’t add up.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
