Crypto.com Sets Mainnet Launch Date, Burns 70 Billion CRO Tokens

After successfully completing its “Crossfire Mainnet Dry-Run”, Crypto.com has finally set the date for its Crypto.org Chain mainnet official launch, the team behind the project said in a blog post on 22 February.

Scheduled to officially launch on 25 March, the Crypto.org Chain aims to provide an open-source settlement layer for payments, DeFi and NFTs, with its main focus being on high speed and low transaction fees. Prior to the announcement, the team behind the project completed a 4 week “dry-run” of the network through the Crossfire testnet — with the goal of “stress testing the network in a practical, real-world setting before public release” — which saw over 3,000 validator applications and processed 275 million transactions.

On Monday, the company stressed its belief in decentralization, and announced the burn of 70 billion CRO — the Crypto.org Chain native token — which will happen in stages prior to the release of the mainnet. The firm will initially burn 59.6 billion tokens on 22 February, and will lock the remaining 10.4 billion in a smart contract to be burned on a monthly bases, as they are being unlocked.

By going through with the burn — aimed at increasing the circulating supply of CRO from the current 24% to over 80% — the firm will be left with 5.9 billion tokens. From these, 5 billion will be allocated as mainnet block rewards for validators, while the remaining 900 million will be used for ecosystem development.

Shortly after the news was released, the CRO token saw an 88% surge in its price, climbing from around $0.15 to almost $0.27 at the time of writing.