Crypto.com-Backed Cronos Team Proposes Reissuing $5.3 Billion Worth of Burned CRO

A new governance proposal outlined by Cronos Labs, the team behind the Cronos blockchain linked to prominent cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, seeks to reissue 70 billion CRO tokens that were previously burned in 2021—and are collectively worth over $5.3 billion today.

The proposal was issued in the hopes of using the tokens to form a “Cronos Strategic Reserve,” piggybacking off the potential United States crypto reserve as suggested by President Donald Trump in recent days. 

The Cronos Strategic Reserve, which is introduced in a blog post by Cronos, would “support the ambition” of making America the world capital of crypto, while also aiding in the completion of the chain’s ambitious roadmap.

“In 2021, 70 billion CRO were burnt in one of the most significant burn transactions in history,” the chain’s team wrote. “Under today's proposal, an equal number of tokens will be reissued on Cronos [proof-of-stake] into a Cronos Strategic Reserve escrow wallet, bringing the total supply back to the initial supply of 100 billion CRO.”

If the proposal succeeds, then the reissued CRO will be subject to a 10 year vesting period, unlocking linearly in the process. No details about future plans for the CRO set aside for a strategic reserve were detailed in the proposal. 

Users in the Cronos Discord and community response on X (formerly Twitter) were mostly negative about the proposal, with one Discord member saying “the optics on this are terrible,” while an X user questioned, “How this is not just diluting the supply?” 

Early voting, which has been completed by 16 of 100 active Cronos validators, is currently against the proposal of a strategic reserve with 95.7% of voting power—around 673 million CRO tokens worth—voting against, while just 3.45% of voting power has voted in favor.

Governance proposals impacting the supply of Cronos tokens are not new. The most recent proposal from November 2024, Proposal #28, was one proposal of a three-part community series that voted on the burning of even more CRO—the opposite of what the latest pitch entails.

In that proposal, CRO validators voted overwhelmingly in favor, with 95% of CRO voting power—more than 8 billion CRO worth—voting in favor of reducing CRO supply by 50 million tokens, valued around $9 million at the time.

CRO is down 8% in the last 24 hours to $0.076. The token is 92% off its all time high of $0.96 from November 2021.

Decrypt asked Crypto.com for comment on the proposal, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Edited by Andrew Hayward