News on December 12: The EVM-compatible blockchain Cronos has completed the v1.4.0 Pallene upgrade, improving transaction execution speed by 600 times. This upgrade implements parallel transaction processing within a single block through the introduction of Block-STM technology, allowing the virtual machine to handle up to 60,000 transactions per second (TPS). Additionally, Pallene introduces optimistic execution through Cosmos SDK 0.50, optimizing block processing and network responsiveness, and upgrades the inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC) to enhance cross-chain connectivity.