Cronos Labs is renaming its trading app to Ult ahead of a September 17 launch, alongside a governance proposal that would route 100% of the app's revenue directly into buying and burning CRO on the open market. The proposals go to Cronos POS governance on September 18, and if the strategy proposal fails, Cronos Labs says it will not proceed with the plan at all.
Ryan Wyatt, CEO of Cronos Labs, explained the renaming logic directly.
"Most of what's inside Ult doesn't run on @CronosNetwork, so the old name told traders the wrong thing of what's available in the app to trade," he wrote on X.
Ult launches in over 100 countries on iOS and Android, supporting sports predictions, spot crypto, and perpetual futures across stocks, commodities, and crypto assets, though available markets vary by jurisdiction.
The Cronos app becomes Ult.
— Ult (@UltApp) September 15, 2026
Ult is short for Ultimate, unlocking your most powerful ability. With Ult, our goal is to give you the most powerful ability to trade: anything you want, whenever you want, wherever you want.
Ult is the app. It will have no token.
All markets, one… pic.twitter.com/yxumPUBN2g
What changes under the new revenue rule
The core proposal replaces a prior four-way revenue split with a single destination. Before this proposal, app revenue funded CRO staking yield, growth spending, buyback and burn activity, and R&D and operating expenses. Under the new structure, 100% of Ult and Cronos Launch revenue buys CRO and burns it, while operations, infrastructure, and growth spending come entirely from existing capital reserves instead.
The buyback mechanism itself also changes in a specific way. Previously, burns were "executed strategically based on market conditions (e.g., fear & greed index) to maximise impact," according to the strategy document. Under the new rule, buybacks execute monthly, onchain, with every transaction hash published, removing discretionary timing entirely.
CRO's burn mechanism sits within a broader trend of crypto projects tying token value directly to protocol revenue rather than relying on inflationary rewards or speculative demand alone. Ethereum's EIP-1559 upgrade in 2021 introduced a similar base-fee burn mechanism that removes ETH from circulation with every transaction, and that model has become a reference point for other networks seeking to create deflationary pressure tied to actual usage rather than fixed emission schedules.
Cronos Launch and the path to a Crypto.com listing
Cronos Launch, described as Cronos Labs' own launchpad, went live September 15 with no native token of its own. Anyone can create a token on it, which then trades on a bonding curve, and every buy and sell transaction pays a fee that is used entirely to buy and burn CRO.
A bonding curve is a pricing mechanism where a token's price rises algorithmically as more of it is purchased and falls as it is sold, without requiring a traditional order book or market maker. Pump.fun popularized this model on Solana starting in 2024, and it has since become a standard mechanism for low-friction token launches across multiple chains because it guarantees liquidity from the moment of creation, since the bonding curve contract itself always stands ready to buy or sell at the current calculated price.
Tokens that graduate from any launchpad on Cronos Network, not exclusively Cronos Launch, can be submitted for a Crypto.com listing review under identical criteria. Cronos Labs was explicit that clearing this bar means entering Crypto.com's review process, not an automatic listing. "Crypto.com owns the criteria, the cadence and the rejections, and Cronos Labs does not speak for that process," the strategy document states.
Wyatt confirmed this distinction on X:
"A clear path to be considered for listings at @cryptocom. We're laying out the review eligibility. Token launchpad information comes out this week. Equal treatment for developers on other launchpads, and for tokens that already exist on Cronos Network."
The legal separation between Cronos Labs and Crypto.com
Cronos Network originated as the blockchain built by Crypto.com, and CRO has functioned as the exchange's native utility token since 2018, originally under the name Crypto.com Coin before rebranding. The relationship between the two organizations has evolved over time, and the strategy document now explicitly states that
"Cronos Labs and Crypto.com are separate and independent legal entities, each with its own governance, management, operations, and regulatory obligations; neither entity is an agent, partner, joint venturer, fiduciary, or affiliate of the other for any purpose."
That level of formal legal separation in a public strategy document signals a deliberate effort to establish operational independence between the token issuer and the exchange that lists it, likely reflecting broader regulatory scrutiny of exchange-token relationships across the industry following cases where exchanges and their native tokens faced conflict-of-interest allegations.
What the tokenomics change means for CRO holders
Acoording to TradingView data, CRO traded at $0.0574, down 1.49%, as the announcement circulated. The strategy proposal is binary: either CRO holders approve directing 100% of Ult and Cronos Launch revenue to buybacks, or Cronos Labs does not proceed with the plan as designed. A separate community pool proposal addresses a different mechanism entirely, deciding whether to execute a fifth burn of 227.9 million CRO and establish a standing rule to burn the pool as it accrues going forward, rather than following the inconsistent criteria and cadence used previously.
Every other Cronos Labs project outside Ult, Cronos Launch, and continued support for VVS Finance will be sunset over the coming months. Wyatt was direct about the scope of that consolidation:
"The mandate for Cronos Labs is clear. Our focus is Ult and products that drive 100% of revenue to $CRO. Every other Cronos Labs project will be sunset over the coming months."
The strategy document itself carries extensive legal disclaimers, noting that all figures are snapshots as of September 8, 2026, subject to change and re-verification before the governance proposals post, and that the entire plan is contingent on the relevant proposals passing onchain votes that Cronos Labs "makes no representation" will succeed.
Matvii Diadkov
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