The most absurd governance farce in the history of CRO, with 70 billion tokens being issued out of thin air
The good news is that the officials have proposed to destroy 100 million tokens, and after waiting for 700 years, the supply will be restored.Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily
Crypto.com and its affiliated blockchain Cronos recently staged one of the most absurd governance farces in blockchain history ------ 70 billion tokens (CRO's current total supply is 30 billion) were created out of thin air. Despite strong opposition from retail investors, the community's voice became a complete joke in the face of the official "veto power."
Cause: Official Proposal to Reissue 70 Billion Tokens
The incident can be traced back to March 3.
On that day, Cronos announced a bold plan (indeed bold) to reshape the golden era of Cronos and invest significant funds to support the Cronos roadmap (including ETFs) and the ambition for the U.S. to become the cryptocurrency capital of the world. To support this plan, Cronos proposed to reverse the destruction of 70 billion tokens that occurred in February 2021 (note that Cronos's X announcement didn't even dare to specify this number) and use that share to build Cronos's strategic reserve.
Specifically, Cronos proposed to reissue these 70 billion CRO to the Cronos strategic reserve custody wallet, restoring the total supply of CRO to the original 100 billion. The newly issued tokens would be locked for 10 years (calculated from the genesis date of CRO), after which they would be unlocked linearly on a monthly basis.
Progress: Community Strongly Opposes, Officials Suspected of "Manipulating Votes"
Clearly, no matter how grandiose Cronos touted this proposal, such a large-scale issuance would inevitably lead to the dilution of CRO's value, which ordinary token holders could not ignore.
Mintscan's governance voting records show that on the first day of voting for this proposal, the opposition rate reached as high as 95.7%, essentially indicating extreme opposition from the community… however, this was of no use.
As shown in the figure below, with the intervention of some mysterious force, the approval rate (green line) managed to turn around the opposition rate (red line) ------ temporarily ignoring the last upward turn of the green line.
The reason for calling it a mysterious force is that during most of the governance period from March 3 to March 17, the approval votes consistently led the opposition votes by a very unnatural slim margin ------ it seemed that this mysterious force wanted to maintain a "false impression" of intense debate between pro and con opinions.
Climax: No More Acting!
This awkward balance persisted until just before the voting ended.
According to Cronos's governance rules (why bother with this setup), the passage of a governance proposal requires not only a certain approval rate but also a voting participation rate exceeding the statutory ratio of 33.4%, and at that time, the voting participation rate for this proposal did not meet this condition. In other words, even if the approval rate was higher at that moment, the proposal could not pass.
So Cronos simply stopped pretending ------ at the last moment, about 3.35 billion CRO directly entered the scene to cast approval votes. This is also why the last green line in the above figure suddenly rose.
According to disclosures from UnChained, three independent sources revealed that Crypto.com and Cronos actually controlled 70-80% of the voting power.
The reason it maintained a balance for a while was that among the validator nodes controlled by Crypto.com, only Starship and Falcon Heavy had acted temporarily, while at the last moment, three other validator nodes, Electron, Antares, and Minotaur IV, also joined in.
You can clearly see the disparity in voting power between the official forces and retail investors in the figure below.
Ultimately, the proposal passed "without a hitch" with the participation of official forces, and 70 billion CRO will officially be minted and await circulation.
In response to this absurd governance farce, many CRO holders expressed extreme disappointment, with some even stating that this was an insult to the community.
Easter Egg: Let Me Show You What True Insult Is!
Is this really an insult? Cronos clearly does not think so.
After the aforementioned proposal passed, Cronos publicly announced another proposal on X, suggesting to destroy 50 million CRO ------ a mere 0.07% of 70 billion, now that's a true insult!
According to the historical destruction records posted by Cronos, two rounds of destruction will be executed each year, with 50 million CRO per round, totaling 100 million CRO per year.
Some community members joked about this, saying: "It seems that it would take about 1,400 rounds of destruction to eliminate these 70 billion CRO. So just wait another 700 years, and we can restore the current supply."
It must be Cronos; this might just be the mindset for building a "century-old enterprise."
