Writers Room
Perhaps you’ve seen the Crypto.com(CRO) coin shooting up the list on CoinMarketCap/CoinGecko in 2021. Or maybe you’ve noticed Matt Damon being shoved in your face in every third commercial touting Crypto.com. If you are like most of us, you’ve wondered to yourself ‘What the heck is CRO?’
Interestingly enough, just a few years ago nobody really used the exchange and now it’s positioned itself as a major player in the crypto markets. In this article we will look at the history, features, and tell you everything you need to know before seeing if this APP or crypto is up your alley.
Or maybe you are just hoping for some Matt Damon jokes – read on!
Contents
#1 What is it Crypto.com and (CRO) Token?
Well, the domain itself (Crypto.com) is pretty old! It was registered in 1993 by cryptography researcher Matt Blaze.
Originally branded as Monaco, it was built using Ethereum's blockchain. But that was then and this is the heavily rebranded now.
Nowadays, Crypto.com is a top 15 exchange and much more! The website makes the claim that is is the 'fastest growing crypto app' and we can see it currently has 10 million users and 3000 employees.
The company is also famous for launching one of the most popular crypto debit cards in the market. The crypto.com card allows users to make purchases using 200+ cryptocurrencies at the 'real exchange rate' - meaning you can indirectly spend the coins you hold in your Crypto.com wallet (although seamless for you).
The card offers up to an attractive 8%* cashback on all purchases and has a stylish metallic design. There's no annual fees and you can top it up with crypto or fiat. Most importantly, you can flex on your friends at dinner when paying the bill. "Oh that card? Yea I've had that a while now, no big deal...heh"
Crypto.com has also ventured into the DeFi space. Users 'stake' various cryptocurrencies and get rewarded just for holding different assets. It pays up to 14% on stable coins and 14.5% on some crypto assets.
Their mission is to put cryptocurrency in everyone's wallet, basically, make it easy for newbies to get started! Fine by us!
*There are different reward tiers.
#2 Big Backers
Crypto.com actually has huge sponsors like UFC, Formula One, and the Philadelphia 76ers at the time of this writing.
Oh, and let's not forget, they actually partnered with Visa to ensure transactions are as fast and widely accepted as possible!
Crypto.com pays big to brand HUGE:
In 2021, the company paid to have the Los Angeles Staples Center renamed into the Crypto.com arena for the next 20 years - in a rumored 700 million deal. The name just took effect Christmas Day of 2021!
Remember Matt Damon? You know the guy famous for Good Will Hu.....Interstell....no... famous for THIS.
Interestingly, actor Matt Damon is one of the brand sponsors, I guess Ben Affleck was busy. Cause' you know when I think immerging technologies I think of Jason Bourne.
Anyways.. they ran a pretty strange ad campaign in which Matt Damon and some astronauts tell us "Fortune favors the brave":
One user, "cocoanaut", commented on YouTube 'This is going to be hilarious to look back on years from now'.
#3 A Deflationary Token CRO
The CRO token is the utility token of the Crypto.com exchange. It's sort of the fuel that allows you to take advantage of many of their APP and debit card perks.
One interesting aspect of CRO is the fact its a deflationary token. A deflationary token is one designed in a way that the supply is reduced over time. As the supply is reduced, the value of each individual token increases. Many economists would say that this is "priced in", but cryptocurrency is far from efficient, so who knows!
The story of Crypto.com's deflation is interesting. Before the launch of the mainnet in 2021 of March, crypto.com burned 70 million CRO(around 10 billion).
Of those 70 billion, 59.6 were burnt outright while 10.4 get burned monthly as they unlock from smart contracts.
The market reacted positively to the burn and Crypto.com saw a price jump from 8 cents to 15 cents.
The slow burn, in theory, should cause the price of crypto.com to gradually rise as more of those remaining tokens are burnt. Again, in theory.
#4 This writers personal experience with the Crypto.com app
I downloaded the app to try it out for myself. It was simple enough to verify my identity and get started. One thing I noticed is that the more CRO you stake (earning interest for locking the tokens) the more rewards become available.
For example, the most expensive physical debit card offers an incredible 8% cashback but requires you to stake $400,000 worth of CRO. If you can't afford to park 400k in crypto, no worries - some of the perks offered by the lesser-prestigious cards include free Netflix, Spotify, and access to lounges.
The different tiers and benefits are available on the website, but I went ahead and ordered myself their most basic tier card. I tried out the exchange aspect of the application and found it pretty easy to use. The fees are very small but you can reduce them further by holding enough CRO token. See how everything revolves around their CRO coin?
In many ways, it reminded me of Binance. The Binance tokens utility comes from the fact that people who use the platform are incentivized to hold it. Many speculators have made comparisons between Binance and Crypto.com.
There's a lot of momentum right now and I feel Crypto.com is just beginning to reach the mainstream. It almost reminds me of Bitconnect during the announcement of Bitconnect 2.0 when they would have a lot of celebrities and performances and crazy marketing.
We know that Crypto.com has a massive marketing budget and it looks like they aim to establish themselves as a mainstream platform. On the app you can earn CRO tokens by performing daily tasks and watching educational content. This reminded me a lot of Coinbase's 'earn' platform.
I'm excited to be able to finally do things like order a pizza with my Crypto.com card! Let's just hope I don't turn into another Bitcoin Pizza Day story!!
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