Key takeaways:
- The Crypto.com cryptocurrency exchanges has partially walked back its decision to reduce cardholder benefits
- However, most of the unpopular changes like the reduction of CRO cashback rewards will remain in place
- The CRO markets have responded negatively to the changes announced by Crypto.com
Crypto.com partially walks back decision to reduce cardholder benefits
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has announced “revised” card staking rates for owners of the Crypto.com Visa Cards, after a previous announcement from the company was met with a heavy backlash from its userbase.
The Crypto.com Visa Cards are prepaid cards that allow users to spend cryptocurrency or fiat from their Crypto.com account. The cards come in five different tiers, with progressively larger benefits.
In order to obtain a Crypto.com Visa Card of the Ruby Steel tier and above, users have to stake CRO tokens in the Crypto.com App Wallet for a period of 6 months (180 days). Higher card tiers require a bigger stake but offer higher cashback rewards, which are paid out with CRO tokens. The cards also offer other benefits like reimbursements of subscriptions to popular services like Spotify and Netflix. Holders of certain card tiers also earn staking rewards on the CRO they staked in order to obtain their card.
Crypto.com recently announced a large update that reduced the benefits enjoyed by cardholders, which includes significantly reduced cashback rewards and card CRO staking rewards. The exchange says the reason for reducing the benefits is to “ensure long-term sustainability”.
Midnight Blue cardholders will no longer be earning any cashback rewards on their purchases with the card, while the rewards for Ruby Steel cardholders with an active stake have been slashed from 2% to 0.5%. The cashback rewards were also reduced substantially for other card tiers. Crypto.com is also capping the amount of cashback rewards that can be earned on a monthly basis by Ruby Steel cardholders ($25) and Royal Indigo / Jade Green cardholders ($50).
In their original announcement (archived version), Crypto.com said that card CRO staking rewards would be phased out entirely for all card tiers. After the backlash from the Crypto.com userbase, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said that the CRO staking rewards will be revised to 8% APY for users with Obsidian, Icy White and Frosted Rose Gold cards, and 4% APY for users with Royal Indigo and Jade Green cards. These changes are now also reflected in the company’s official post regarding the reduced benefits.
Despite these revised CRO staking rates for cardholders, the other unpopular changes like the reduced cashback rates will still be coming into effect starting with June 1.
Crypto.com’s move to reduce benefits for cardholders has had a negative impact on the CRO market. CRO is one of the worst performers in the cryptocurrency top 100 in the last 7 days, losing around 26% of its value.
