diff --git a/cronos/cometbft.Dockerfile b/cronos/cometbft.Dockerfile
index ee2752f7..05f88016 100644
--- a/cronos/cometbft.Dockerfile
+++ b/cronos/cometbft.Dockerfile
@@ -1,11 +1,21 @@
-ARG CRONOS_CRONOS_IMAGE
+# cronosd — public GitHub release tarball (ghcr.io/crypto-org-chain/cronos returns 403
+# on anonymous pulls). Mirror zero-gravity/zerog.Dockerfile: alpine base + tarball extract.
+ARG CRONOS_CRONOS_VERSION=v1.7.8
+
+FROM alpine:3.21
+
+RUN apk add --no-cache ca-certificates curl jq
+
 ARG CRONOS_CRONOS_VERSION
-FROM ${CRONOS_CRONOS_IMAGE}:${CRONOS_CRONOS_VERSION}
-# Layer the shared CometBFT bootstrap lib + the chain init.sh onto the upstream
-# cronos binary image (alpine-based, has sh+apk; runs nonroot by default — the compose
-# sets user: root so init.sh can apk-add curl and write the /root home).
-USER root
+RUN _ver="${CRONOS_CRONOS_VERSION#v}" && \
+    curl -fsSL "https://github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos/releases/download/${CRONOS_CRONOS_VERSION}/cronos_${_ver}_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz" \
+      -o /tmp/cronos.tar.gz && \
+    tar -xzf /tmp/cronos.tar.gz -C /tmp && \
+    install -m 755 /tmp/bin/cronosd /usr/local/bin/cronosd && \
+    rm -rf /tmp/cronos.tar.gz /tmp/bin
+
 COPY ./scripts/cometbft-common.sh /usr/local/bin/cometbft-common.sh
 COPY ./scripts/init.sh            /usr/local/bin/init.sh
 RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/init.sh /usr/local/bin/cometbft-common.sh
+
 ENTRYPOINT ["init.sh"]
diff --git a/cronos/scripts/init.sh b/cronos/scripts/init.sh
index f19b931f..093b5067 100644
--- a/cronos/scripts/init.sh
+++ b/cronos/scripts/init.sh
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ CHAINID="${CHAINID:-cronosmainnet_25-1}"
 API="${API:-eth,txpool,net,debug,web3}"
 GENESIS_URL="${GENESIS_URL:-https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos-mainnet/master/cronosmainnet_25-1/genesis.json}"
 SEEDS="${SEEDS:-0d5cf1394a1cfde28dc8f023567222abc0f47534@seed-0.cronos.com:26656,3032073adc06d710dd512240281637c1bd0c8a7b@seed-1.cronos.com:26656,04f43116b4c6c70054d9c2b7485383df5b1ed1da@seed-2.cronos.com:26656,337377dcda43d79c537d2c4d93ad3b698ce9452e@bd-cronos-mainnet-seed-node-01.bdnodes.net:26656}"
-STATESYNC_RPC="${STATESYNC_RPC:-https://rpc-cronos.crypto.org:443,https://cronos-rpc.publicnode.com:443}"
+STATESYNC_RPC="${STATESYNC_RPC:-https://cronos-rpc.publicnode.com:443}"
+MIN_GAS="${MIN_GAS:-5000000000000basecro}"
 PRUNING="${PRUNING:-custom}"
 PRUNING_KEEP_RECENT="${PRUNING_KEEP_RECENT:-100}"
 PRUNING_INTERVAL="${PRUNING_INTERVAL:-19}"
@@ -29,6 +30,7 @@ if cronosd init "${MONIKER:-rpc-node}" --chain-id "$CHAINID" --home "$HOME_DIR"
   ct_log "fresh init; fetching genesis"
   ct_fetch "$GENESIS_URL" "$CONFIG_DIR/genesis.json" required
   ct_localize_home "$CONFIG_DIR"
+  ct_set_min_gas_prices "$CONFIG_DIR/app.toml" "$MIN_GAS"
 else
   ct_log "already initialized, continuing"
 fi
@@ -54,4 +56,4 @@ ct_merge_seeds "$CONFIG_DIR/config.toml" "$SEEDS"
 ct_configure_statesync "$CONFIG_DIR/config.toml" "$STATESYNC_RPC" 2000
 ct_set_moniker "$CONFIG_DIR/config.toml" "${MONIKER:-rpc-node}"
 
-exec cronosd start --chain-id "$CHAINID" "$@"
+exec cronosd start --chain-id "$CHAINID" --minimum-gas-prices "$MIN_GAS" "$@"