What Is Chromia (CHR)?

Chromia is a Layer-1 modular relational blockchain designed for building scalable and customizable decentralized applications. Chromia supports standalone applications, EVM-interoperable Layer-2 enhancements, and can serve as a decentralized infrastructure layer for data-intensive use cases such as AI, gaming, and more. The native token, CHR, was launched in May 2019.

Some examples of applications on Chromia include: My Neighbor Alice, a multiplayer builder and farming game; Mines of Dalarnia, an action-adventure game; EVAL Engine, an AI Agent Evaluation Plugin; Fanzeal, a digital collectible and fan engagement platform for club for sports and E-sports; and ColorPool, a DeFi platform offering a gas-free decentralized exchange, liquidity pools, staking, and integrated mini-games.

What Makes Chromia Unique?

Chromia is built on a unique relational blockchain architecture, allowing Chromia to support complex, data-intensive applications that would be difficult or expensive to run on traditional blockchains.

The platform uses a modular design, allowing developers to integrate optional components known as Extensions. These extensions can provide a variety of on-chain features like vectorized data, AI inference, and oracles.

Chromia stands out as an ideal platform for AI development due to several innovative features. The Mimir Mainnet Upgrade, released in March 2025, included the Vector Database Extension, enabling on-chain management of vectorized data essential for AI applications. The upgrade also introduced the AI Inference Extension, which aims to support hosting LLMs directly on network nodes, reducing reliance on centralized services. The platform's ongoing integration with LangChain, a leading AI agent framework, further expands support for decentralized, intelligent applications. Chromia’s relational database structure and independent dapp chains provide a scalable and developer-friendly environment for cost-effective and performant AI solutions.

Chromia also serves as an interoperable enhancement layer for Ethereum and other EVM chains. EVM-based projects can use Chromia to build companion dApps or store more complex and structured metadata, reducing reliance on centralized solutions.

Every application on Chromia runs on its own independent blockchain. This design allows each dApp to scale independently and define its own rules, governance, and fee models for optimal scalability and customization.

Chromia uses an economic model that resembles traditional hosting. Deployers pay CHR tokens to cover hosting costs, after which they have unrestricted access to their chain’s resources. This not only enables gas free interactions for users, but also allows projects to use their chain for infrastructure purposes with cost certainty and without per transaction fees.

Rell is the programming language created for building on Chromia. It’s designed to work naturally with Chromia’s database-style blockchain, making it easier and faster for developers to build secure and efficient applications. Rell uses familiar coding concepts, helping developers get started quickly without a steep learning curve.

Who Are the Founders of Chromia?

Chromia was co-founded by Henrik Hjelte, Alex Mizrahi, and Or Perelman. Each of the co-founders brings deep experience from the early days of the blockchain industry, including foundational work on Proof of Stake consensus and the Colored Coins project.

While the original leadership remains actively involved, Chromia has evolved into a global initiative with a diverse and expanding team. Today, the project benefits from the contributions of dozens of developers, researchers, and ecosystem partners from around the world building a growing range of applications and infrastructure on the platform.

Chromia has raised three funding rounds so far:

The first round was a private sale that took place in 2018 and raised $3 million from NGC Ventures, FBG Capital, JRR Crypto, DFG Capital (Dynamic Fintech Group), OK Blockchain Capital (OK Group’s investment arm), AlphaBit Fund (ABCFund), LD Capital (LD Investments), Du Capital (DuCapital), Bitrise Capital Partners (Bitrise Capital), Chaince Capital Partners (Chaince Labs), Waterdrip Capital Partners (Waterdrip Capital).

The second round was a public sale that took place in 2019 and raised $2.5 million from KuCoin Spotlight, a platform that showcases high-quality blockchain projects.

The third round was a seed round that took place in 2019 and raised an undisclosed amount from one investor: Binance Labs, the venture arm of Binance.

In addition to these rounds, Chromia also received a strategic investment from Animoca Brands, a leading global developer and publisher of mobile games and blockchain gaming platforms, in 2020.