Crypto.com launched their mainnet on 25th March. The crypto.org chain is their blockchain and smart contracts platform similar to Binance Smart Chain. Currently CRO is the only crypto that is issued on the Crypto.org chain. But the team have already announced plans to bring more crypto onto their blockchain including the Stablecoin USDC. This is more important because the VISA news about supporting USDC native crypto payments is currently on the Ethereum blockchain in partnership with Crypto.com and we can potentially expect that the fees will be greatly reduced for VISA once this moves to USDC on the Crypto.org chain from the ERC-20 token system it is currently using.

CRO Staking for the native CRO tokens with low fees is available in the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet after the mainnet launch from the 25-Mar-2021.

APY rewards were 100% on day 1 & ~50% now. There are 4 steps to staking if you already have CRO on the Crypto.com mobile app or Exchange.

Step 1 - Download the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet app on an Android Phone or iPhone and create a new DeFi Wallet. Remember to write down the 12 word recovery phrase & understand this is a non-custodial wallet. Meaning only you will have access to the private keys of this wallet. Secure your DeFi wallet with a 6 digit passcode for security. The 2FA at this point on the DeFi wallet is optional & redundant as it is only on your mobile phone in any case.

Step 2 - Select the Receive option against CRO & notice the CRO mainnet option along with the ERC-20 token. Till the 24-Mar there was only the ERC-20 option available. Note down the CRO address on the crypto.org mainnet address (Not the ERC-20)

Step 3 - Login to your mobile app or exchange & withdraw CRO to external wallet. Notice that the withdraw also gives you the option to withdraw as ERC-20 or the native CRO. Select the Native CRO & paste the address from the DeFi wallet (Do not send between ERC-20 and native CRO blockchains. Make sure that in both places it was the native CRO). Till the 24-Mar, the fees for transferring from Crypto.com app to the DeFi wallet was nearly 200 CRO (approximately 40$) . Now 0.001 CRO (0.002$)

Step 4 - Open the DeFi wallet & select the Staking options. You should see a validator node available for staking. Make sure to keep at least 1 CRO for Claiming the rewards & stake the other CRO to the validator node. As of today 31-Mar, the CRO staking rewards is around ~ 50% (was more than 100% on Day 1 of the launch & expected to reduce to 20% over the time). Staking fees is again around 0.002 CRO. Your CRO should be staked in a few seconds.

Full DEMO on creating new DeFi Wallet & Staking here - https://youtu.be/Dujgtvu8960

Points to remember

• Claiming CRO staking rewards currently takes a fees of around 0.002 CRO. So keep at least 1 CRO for this.
• Un-staking requires a 28 day bonding period which means you will have to wait 28 days when you decide to unstake it.
• Collecting rewards is not mandatory, but at the moment the interest CRO you receive is not compounded into the staking. So if you have a decent amount of interest, it may be beneficial to collect and re-stake those CRO for additional rewards again.
• At the moment only CRO & Atom Staking are the non ERC-20 options available for low or no Ethereum gas fees. If you are going to perform any other staking or transfers, it is still on the ERC-20 and will need Ethereum for the Gas fees.