Crypto.com will slash annual rewards on new CRO lockups on Thursday by 25% or more.
The disappointment for holders of Crypto.com’s proprietary token is merely the latest chapter in a years-long odyssey of roadmap changes, altered promotions, and other reneged forecasts by Crypto.com and its predecessor, Monaco.
On September 10, lockup rewards for “Obsidian/Private” tier CRO owners are dropping to 6% from 9%, 5% from 8.5% for the “Icy/Rose/Private” tier, and 3% from 4% for “Jade/Indigo/Pro.”
The fresh cut continues a disappointing series of news with a voluminous back catalog.
Throughout its history, CRO leaders have reversed prior guidance, reduced payouts, and penalized retail holders for the benefit of institutional partners.
Indeed, retail investors had to suffer through triple-digit supply inflation of their token to help with “Making America the world capital of crypto.”
For context, the price of CRO has declined 75% over the past year, thanks in part to that initiative and other Crypto.com disappointments.
After roadmap changes, expired promotions, layoffs, and other unfortunate incidents that were supposed to clean up the CRO community, the price of CRO has declined since November 2021 and remains 93% below its all-time high almost five years ago.
Crypto.com’s Cronos blockchain also erased a few hours of activity today as it struggles with even basic infrastructure uptime.
Read more: Crypto.com-promoted Tectonic forces Cronos to halt, rewind
Ever since Monaco’s whitepaper, the terms have kept changing
Monaco, Crypto.com’s predecessor, initially sold MCO, the original coin that migrated to CRO, with an “asset contract” funded by a 1% fee on certain Monaco Card transactions.
Holders would even be allowed to burn their MCO in exchange for a proportional share of this asset contract, a mechanism designed to create revenue-linked redemption value.
By late 2017, Monaco removed that contract from its roadmap, citing regulatory changes. It raised its Monaco Card cashback rate to as much as 2% as a distinct type of compensation, despite renegeing on the original token economic promise.
On November 20, 2018, Crypto.com announced 60 monthly CRO airdrops for eligible MCO holders that were supposed to last, obviously, five years. However, the airdrops ended prematurely in June 2019, roughly seven months into that five year schedule, with the remaining allocation redirected.
More than 50 of those promised monthly distributions to MCO holders never arrived.
In 2020, Crypto.com pushed MCO holders to migrate blockchain contracts to CRO, then stopped supporting unswapped MCO across its product suite.
The MCO token technically survived on Ethereum, although its company-backed utility did not.
Read more: Crypto.com-promoted Tectonic forces Cronos to halt, rewind
Next, Crypto.com cut cashback rates for its cardholders in May 2022 and initially planned to eliminate card staking rewards altogether after 180-day terms expired.
Following a backlash over that total reduction, it restored smaller rewards within days and allowed existing users to retain their old rates until expiry.
Benefits continued to shrink. In 2020, Crypto.com advertised Airbnb, Expedia, and Amazon Prime rebates to its highest card tiers.
By 2025, Crypto.com announced it would remove those vendors from Icy, Rose, and Obsidian tier users’ rewards programs. It also eliminated 1% and 2% non-staking spending rewards for cards issued before November 6, 2024.
Lounge access followed the same trajectory.
Crypto.com restricted the benefit in September 2025 to customers with an active CRO lockup, stake, or annual subscription. This month, it halved annual visits for Pro users, and removed complimentary guest access from Private tiers in most markets.
Lastly and most importantly, Crypto.com led an initiative to un-burn the supply of CRO.
In February 2021, Crypto.com announced and began conducting a 70 billion CRO token burn program, calling it a step toward full decentralization.
In 2025, the Crypto.com-aligned Cronos described its 2025 plan to re-mint those 70 billion CRO into a “Strategic Reserve,” reversing the burn entirely.
On Thursday, as mentioned above, Crypto.com is revising its rewards rates downward on new CRO lockups on Thursday by 25% or more.
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