coindesk.com
A contentious proposal in the Cronos ecosystem drew to a close late Monday, with the community voting in favor of the token supply growing from 30 billion $CRO to 100 billion $CRO over a 10-year vesting period.
That, however, happened after weeks of the community leaning against the switch whilst a few $CRO whales — or influential users who hold large amounts of a token — stepped up in the last few hours of the vote’s closure to nudge it into favor.
Cronos, tied to crypto exchange Crypto.com, earlier in the month proposed reissuing 70 billion $CRO tokens it burned in 2021, aiming to restore its original 100 billion token supply for a "Strategic Reserve.”
The supposed $5 billion plan (at current $0.08 $CRO prices) sought to boost U.S. crypto dominance, fund ecosystem growth and launch a $CRO ETF. Community backlash was strong when the vote first went live, with 86% opposing it in the first few days.
But crypto governance is notorious for being community-governed in name only; with large token holders able to dominate any proposals and changes at their will — even though the vote would be, in theory, executed transparently by the “community.”
The proposal, live from March 2-16 and through its voting period, was nowhere near the 33.4% quorum needed to pass. Then, at 14:00 UTC on Monday, a 3.35 billion $CRO vote dump flipped the script, hitting quorum and sealing the deal. Final count: 61.18% yes, 17.61% no, 20.11% abstain and 0.11% veto.
Two influencer network validators, Starship and Falcon Heavy, backed the plan as of March 10, dwarfed by 77.97% against it and 8.47% abstaining at the time. On Monday, Electron, Antares, and Minotaur IV piled in — using a cumulative 3.2 billion $CRO in voting power to vote for the proposal.
Cronos network had an upgrade lined up in the hours after the vote drew to a close and was finished on March 18 at 03:00 UTC, setting course for a more than 200% increase in supply in the coming years.
Traders have responded in kind, with $CRO down 8.5% in the past 24 hours amid a flat market.