Cronos

Cronos Labs announced today that <a href="https://cronos.org/zkevm" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cronos zkEVM</a>, the first layer-2 ZK chain besides ZKsync Era, is live on mainnet.The new network is launching as a collaboration between Cronos Labs and engineering teams from Matter Labs (one of the contributors to ZKsync), Crypto.com, VVS Finance, Fulcrom Finance and Veno Finance, as well as more than 20 launch partners.<h2 id="header-0">Cronos zkEVM &#34;Alpha&#34; Mainnet Network Configuration</h2>Name: Cronos zkEVM MainnetNew RPC URL: https://mainnet.zkevm.cronos.orgChain ID: 388Symbol: zkCROBlock explorer URL: https://explorer.zkevm.cronos.org<h2 id="header-1">First independent ZK chain</h2>Cronos zkEVM is a layer-2 blockchain on top of Ethereum, powered by ZKsync technology. Its testnet, launched <a href="https://blog.cronos.org/p/cronos-labs-launches-public-zkevm" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">in December 2023</a>, has seen more than 3 million unique addresses processing millions of transactions. The network is now on mainnet.Cronos zkEVM is the latest network of the Cronos project, a leading blockchain ecosystem that has partnered with Crypto.com and more than 500 application developers and contributors representing an addressable user base of more than a hundred million people around the world. Cronos&#39; mission is to make it easy and safe for the next billion crypto users to adopt self-custody in Web3, with a focus on Decentralized Finance and Gaming.Cronos zkEVM will coexist with the Cronos EVM and Cronos POS blockchains which encompass more than 6 billion dollars of user assets and have securely settled more than 150 million transactions by more than 1 million users to date. The new network expands the Cronos ecosystem into the fast-growing world of interconnected Ethereum layer-2 networks.Cronos zkEVM uses $zkCRO, a liquid staked version of $CRO (Cronos), as its gas token, although account abstraction makes it possible for users to pay transaction fees in a wide range of tokens or even to enable gasless transactions. The use of an alternative token, instead of ETH, is a major innovation among ZK Chains and layer 2 blockchains in general.Cronos zkEVM is the first blockchain, besides Era, to have <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8e3e2e560ebf574831243fce8cf2340b2e7d62a1af620e6ccfebe435602131af" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">committed a ZK proof</a> to the shared smart contract of the Elastic Chain ecosystem on Ethereum. The launch of Cronos zkEVM marks a big leap forward for the Elastic Chain. Era, the inaugural ZK Chain in the ecosystem, is now complemented by Cronos zkEVM. This addition marks a significant milestone in realizing the Elastic Chain vision: a growing network of ZK rollups, secured by advanced cryptography and seamlessly interoperable. The Elastic Chain ecosystem offers a unified, user-friendly experience designed to bring blockchain technology to mainstream adoption.Ken Timsit from Cronos Labs, commented: &#34;The Cronos team has a track record of leveraging the best blockchain technology to create compelling use cases, as well as contributing back to these open-source projects. Through the launch of Cronos zkEVM and our integration with ZKsync, we would like to help to realize the long term vision of Ethereum on a path towards infinite scalability and mainstream adoption.&#34;Anthony Rose, Chief Technology Officer at Matter Labs, commented: “The ZKsync v24 protocol upgrade, deployed to mainnet back in June, was a major step forward for the ZKsync network. This upgrade paved the way for ZK Chains to join the Elastic Chain ecosystem. The Cronos team is extremely strong, and they have a proven track record in delivering technologies that people want to use. It has been a really rewarding collaboration, and I’m really excited that they’re hitting such a consequential milestone and have also done so as the first ZK Chain after Era to be live. I’m looking forward to the continued innovation as the broader network continues to mature.”<h2 id="header-2">Future-proof platform for next-generation DeFi</h2>In the competitive world of blockchain networks, Cronos zkEVM brings a strong and differentiated value proposition.As the first ZK Chain besides Era live on mainnet, it represents a bold statement on the vision of the Elastic Chain. Composed of ZK Chains, the Elastic Chain is an interconnected network of layer-2s that can aggregate liquidity and users to scale Ethereum.From the user perspective, ZK Chains are part of a united, multi-chain ecosystem that will behave like a single chain. ZK Chains, such as Cronos zkEVM, will be:<ul><li>Easy to use: only one address and a single signature will be needed to transact with any user or smart contract across the ecosystem;</li><li>Low-cost: Cross-ZK Chain transactions will cost roughly as much as similar transactions within a single ZK Chain;</li><li>Secured by math: all transactions are secured by math and verified and enforced by Ethereum.</li></ul>Cronos zkEVM leverages the vibrant user and developer ecosystem of the Cronos project, known as #CROFam, representing an addressable user base of over a 100 million people. Most of the top Cronos app developers have already announced their expansion to the new chain, together with several new launch partners.Cronos’ DeFi ecosystem offers an appealing triple yield value proposition to end-users. This means that end-users can put their crypto assets to work and simultaneously  unlock three levels of yield:<ul><li>The staking APR of liquid staked cryptocurrencies such as zkCRO, vETH and vUSD;</li><li>The DeFi yield generated by decentralized applications;</li><li>And the loyalty points accumulated by users when they complete ecosystem quests that can be claimed to unlock additional rewards as part of the Pioneer Program</li></ul>In other words, when users hold zkCRO, vETH and vUSD, which replace CRO, ETH and DAI as first-citizen cryptocurrencies of the network, they will be accumulating yield just by keeping the assets in their wallet and can easily choose to add supplementary sources of yield. At the time of writing, the native proof-of-stake yield is around 8% for CRO and 3% for ETH, and the daily saving rate APR for DAI is around 7% (before commissions).Thousands of early adopters have already acquired zkCRO by participating in the pre-launch deposit program called Cronos zkEVM Passage, which attracted 100 million CRO in deposits.In addition to having intrinsic strengths, the Cronos zkEVM network enhances the Cronos project significantly by introducing new features that were not previously offered by existing Cronos chains.One of such features is the native Ethereum bridge, secured by Ethereum smart contracts, that is shared with Era and other ZK chains. The enhanced security of this L1 &lt;&gt; L2 bridge changes the game completely, bringing peace of mind to end-users who until now only rely on third-party controlled bridges to transfer cryptocurrencies between layer-1 or layer-2 networks.Another innovation is the implementation of native account abstraction, creating smart accounts directly at the protocol level that allow builders to create game-changing UX and payment innovations. For instance, it makes it possible for end-users to transact with dApps even when they do not own native gas tokens; secure one-tap onboarding via FaceID/Passkeys, eliminating the need for seed phrases; enable gasless transactions, and much more.While account abstraction technology has been available for a long time, its adoption has remained in the single-digit percentage  due to the difficulty of migrating  an existing blockchain to a new wallet system. On Cronos zkEVM, account abstraction is available on Day 1 and the launch partners are strongly encouraged to support it immediately, paving the way for mainstream adoption of the network.<h2 id="header-3">Launch partners</h2>Cronos zkEVM&#39;s mainnet launched with dozens of partners who have already announced plans to deploy their products on the network in the coming weeks.Supported self-custodial wallets include Crypto.com DeFi Wallet, Rabby and MetaMask.Launch partners include the core contributors of the network such as Cronos Labs and engineering teams from Matter Labs, Crypto.com, VVS Finance, Fulcrom Finance and Veno Finance.A number of decentralized applications in the DeFi, NFT and gaming space such as H2 Finance, Fulcrom Finance, Ebisu&#39;s Bay, Puush.fun, Wolfswap, Crolon Mars, Minted, Amply Finance, Securd, Reax, Cronos Safe, and Cronos Connect are also launching.Application developers will be able to leverage developer tooling platforms such as Cronos Explorer, Cronos Developer Portal, Pyth, Band Protocol, Goldsky, Innerworks, Zyfi and NFTs2Me.When it comes to user onramp and offramp, Cronos zkEVM features a native L1 &lt;&gt; L2 bridge with Ethereum, and will be supported by Crypto.com, one of the world&#39;s leading custodial exchanges. It will soon be supported by additional third party bridges such as XY Finance, deBridge, RhinoFi and others.<h2 id="header-4">Pioneer program</h2>The Cronos zkEVM Pioneer Program  (<a href="https://zkevm.cronos.org/missions" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://zkevm.cronos.org/missions</a>) is a loyalty program that makes it possible for end-users to accumulate loyalty points when they perform eligible actions on the network, and subsequently to redeem these points to unlock rewards from participating apps. The Pioneer Program is essentially the third layer of the &#34;triple yield&#34; value proposition.The program has already completed two phases. During the first phase, users were encouraged to experiment with the Cronos zkEVM testnet to harden its performance. In the second phase,  users could deposit CRO and LCRO tokens into the Cronos zkEVM bridge to receive zkCRO on Day 1 of the mainnet going live.Today marks the start of a new phase of the loyalty program called &#34;Mainnet Missions&#34;. During the first season of these missions, users will be invited to complete a number of quests on the mainnet, such as bridging funds, sending transactions, and using eligible dapps.Actions will be tracked on a daily basis and users can accumulate more loyalty points by completing the same set of actions every day or every week. On this website, users will also be able to keep track of the number of loyalty points collected.Season 1 of Mainnet Missions is scheduled to last for 8 to 12 weeks. At the end of the season, users will see the potential value of their points in various participating cryptocurrencies, and  will be able to gradually claim these cryptocurrencies at a rate determined by the evolution of their average on-chain balance. This mechanism is a new paradigm in token reward design as it focuses on rewarding authentic users participating in the chain&#39;s activity over the long run.The Pioneer program reward pool will be significant. It includes more than 5,000,000 ZK tokens already collected by Cronos zkEVM from the ZK Nation airdrop. Additional token contributions in zkCRO and tokens of participating projects will be announced in due course.<h2 id="header-5">What&#39;s next</h2>Cronos zkEVM&#34;s alpha mainnet phase is expected to last until the end of September 2024. During the alpha phase, the network&#39;s engineering team will monitor its performance and collect feedback from users and developers, before deciding to move into the beta phase.The launch of Cronos zkEVM mainnet represents a significant milestone on Cronos&#39; journey towards scalability and mainstream adoption. It also benefits the broader ZK chain and Ethereum ecosystems by enabling Ethereum&#39;s vision of infinite horizontal scalability through layered networks.<h2 id="header-6">About Cronos</h2>Cronos (cronos.org) is a leading blockchain ecosystem that has partnered with Crypto.com and more than 500 application developers and contributors representing an addressable user base of more than a hundred million people around the world. Cronos&#39; mission is to make it easy and safe for the next billion crypto users to adopt self-custody in Web3, with a focus on Decentralized Finance and Gaming.The Cronos universe encompasses 3 chains: Cronos EVM, the leading Ethereum-compatible blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK; Cronos POS, a leading Cosmos chain for payments and NFTs; and Cronos zkEVM, a new high-performance layer 2 network secured by Ethereum.Cronos ranks among the top 15 blockchain ecosystems, encompassing more than 6 billion dollars of user assets. Since inception, it has securely settled more than 150 million transactions.Cronos is supported by Cronos Labs, a 100 M$ Web3 start-up accelerator focused on DeFi, GameFi, and the development of the Cronos ecosystem.<h2 id="header-7">About ZKsync</h2>ZKsync is a suite of zero-knowledge (ZK) technology solutions that can be leveraged to create secure, censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving, and hyper-scalable blockchains. ZKsync is made available to developers, enterprises, and financial institutions through the ZK Stack Ethereum rollup framework, which enables the deployment of customizable ZK Chains. These ZK Chains form an interconnected network through the ZKsync 3.0 upgrade, called the Elastic Chain. The Elastic Chain enables native, trustless, and low-cost interoperability between the ZK Chains powered by ZK Stack. Era is the first mainnet chain in the Elastic Chain ecosystem with more launching in the near future.To learn more about ZKsync, visit zksync.io.

Cronos zkEVM Launches Its Alpha Mainnet powered by ZKsync

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