ZetaChain 🟩 (@zetablockchain): Why We’re Targeting TON — Testnet Live on ZetaChain

Why We’re Targeting TON — Testnet Live on ZetaChain At ZetaChain, our mission is to build a Universal Blockchain with native access to any blockchain, making crypto as accessible, diverse, and connected as the internet. We focus on enhancing (not replacing) existing networks like Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, and more, offering a single platform for Universal Connectivity. Our latest milestone is TON (The Open Network) Testnet support, which unlocks Universal Apps (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/start/app/) and seamless flows between TON and other major ecosystems. Why ZetaChain is targeting TON? TON has its roots in the Telegram Open Network and is backed by an active community, a growing ecosystem, and a potential user base in the billions via Telegram. Despite this scale, TON liquidity remains largely siloed from the rest of crypto. Developers who want to move liquidity from other chains, invoke Solidity contracts on EVM networks, or unlock native BTC liquidity on TON face significant interoperability hurdles. ZetaChain is targeting an integration with TON to achieve: First-Mover Advantage: TON stands out with a novel, high-throughput sharded architecture. Early integration opens the door to cross-chain DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and social dApps that span all chains. Unifying Liquidity: TON assets can flow into and out of other chains seamlessly, connecting its high-performance network to global liquidity pools. Native BTC Access: Leverage native BTC directly on TON-based dApps without complex wrapping solutions, opening up new possibilities for "BTC-fi" on TON. Contract Invocation: TON apps can call external network contracts like, for example, on Ethereum or Solana, enabling full cross-chain composability. Innovations and Trade-Offs in TON TON’s sharded and asynchronous architecture enables high scalability with claims of up to 100,000 TPS in optimal settings. It also introduces unique concepts: Everything Is a Contract: Even wallets on TON are smart contracts, providing greater flexibility but fewer “plug-and-play” standards (e.g., no direct equivalent to OpenZeppelin’s widely adopted libraries). Messages Instead of Transactions [1]: TON uses a messaging model, where each contract operates asynchronously. This can be more scalable but complicates cross-chain coordination. Cell-Based Storage: TON’s data is stored in cells [2], which form a directed acyclic graph, diverging significantly from typical EVM or Bitcoin storage models. A major trade-off is the lack of established best practices seen in the EVM world. While this encourages innovation, it also means fewer ready-made solutions, a steeper learning curve for new developers, and additional complexity for bridging or Universal App (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/start/app/) development. Current State of TON Interoperability Despite rapid growth, TON’s ecosystem remains siloed: Official Bridges [3]: Limited and often expensive (e.g., fees of 5 TON + 0.25% per transfer), with minimal support for popular networks. Centralized or Limited Alternatives: Third-party solutions (like AllBridge) exist but are typically point-to-point, focusing on wrapped assets or narrower use cases. Learn more about the challenges of point-to-point messaging (https://www.zetachain.com/blog/build-for-any-blockchain-with-universal-apps). By connecting TON to ZetaChain’s Universal EVM (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/start/evm/), developers can access a broad array of chain ecosystems — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Sui, Avalanche, Etc. — without deploying their app multiple times and implementing separate bridging modules for each unique chain standard. This one-to-many approach (https://www.zetachain.com/blog/build-for-any-blockchain-with-universal-apps) contrasts with the one-to-one bridging common elsewhere. Native TON Support for Universal Apps Once TON is natively supported on ZetaChain, new possibilities open up: Cross-Chain Asset Swaps: Enable direct swaps involving TON and other chain assets (e.g., Ethereum’s USDC or native BTC). BTC-Focused DeFi on TON: Unlock “BTC-fi,” letting BTC holders seamlessly participate in TON-based DeFi protocols without switching from Bitcoin network. Expanded Liquidity for TON Protocols: TON dApps (e.g., lending platforms like EVVA Protocol [4]) gain access to liquidity from any of ZetaChain’s connected chains in a single environment. Universal Connectivity: Instead of building a separate liquidity bridge for each chain, TON dApps can reach users and native liquidity from all connected ecosystems through ZetaChain. For instance, imagine a TON-based gaming dApp that allows players to use their non-TON crypto assets and convert it into TON (e.g. top-up TON wallet using other chains/assets) to use directly in-game without the need for cumbersome bridging processes. This not only enhances user experience but also expands the game's potential user base by tapping into existing cryptocurrency holders directly on other chains. Similarly, a DEX built as a Universal App could list tokens from multiple chains, including TON, Bitcoin, and Ethereum, all managed through a single contract on ZetaChain. This simplifies the development process and reduces the risk of errors in cross-chain transactions. ZetaChain’s approach integrating TON The main challenges integrating TON into the ZetaChain blockchain system were the following: Asynchronous Interaction Model: TON is inherently async, meaning you can’t reliably know when or in which exact block your transaction will be processed. Gas fees involve multiple parameters (including storage costs [5]), quite different from typical EVM or Bitcoin models. Further, the concept of “messages” (versus single-transaction calls) diverges from EVM’s synchronous contract calls. Different Signature Scheme: TON uses EDDSA cryptography, in contrast to the ECDSA used by Bitcoin and EVM chains. Implementing secure threshold signature schemes (TSS) or multi-signature logic for EDDSA demands custom solutions. 🖼️ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gmw4LiKWEAAWGRU.jpg Note, on Jetton Support, TON’s equivalent of ERC20s (Jettons) are not currently supported by ZetaChain’s TON Gateway. ZetaChain plans to add Jetton interoperability in the future including withdrawAndCall functionality (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/developers/chains/functionality/), but for now, only native TON transfers and cross-chain calls are enabled. Achieving Chain Abstraction with Gateway ZetaChain’s Gateway (https://medium.com/@zetablockchain/introducing-gateway-your-unified-entry-point-for-building-universal-apps-76b0a2845edb) abstracts these differences using a uniform set of primitives, so Universal Apps (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/developers/apps/intro/#overview) don’t need to specialize for each chain. The Universal contract will be called in the same way from TON as from other chains, and the contract handles native TON (and eventually Jetton-based tokens) in the same way as other native assets such as Ethereum’s USDC, ETH, BTC, BSC USDC. The TON Gateway manages: Account Creation: If a user doesn’t have an existing TON account for ZetaChain interactions, it’s seamlessly created under the hood. Message & Transaction Handling: ZetaChain handles asynchronous messages on TON’s network, presenting them to the Universal App as standard cross-chain events. Signature Verification: We implemented on-chain ECDSA signature verification in the Gateway (common/crypto.fc https://github.com/zeta-chain/protocol-contracts-ton), utilizing low-level TVM (TON Virtual Machine) functionality and tools like tools like ECRECOVER with its own nonce to handle differences in cryptographic standards. The ZetaChain system handles the underlying machinery to realize this abstraction of native assets on different chains internally, for example creating accounts for users on TON if they did not exist. This alignment of asynchronous logic to a uniform cross-chain interface (Gateway (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/developers/evm/gateway/)) is exactly how we integrated Solana (https://medium.com/@zetablockchain/zetachain-now-brings-native-btc-liquidity-into-composability-with-solana-apps-cae8ddaf7eb6), reinforcing the idea that ZetaChain’s Universal model can extend to any blockchain, EVM or not. Conclusion By integrating TON into ZetaChain, we un-silo TON’s liquidity and connect its user base to the wider crypto world. TON-based dApps can now leverage native liquidity from Ethereum, Solana, Sui, Bitcoin and other connected chains — without deploying on many chains and token wrapping. Developers also gain access to TON’s 100,000 TPS potential for high-speed dApps that interoperate seamlessly with these connected chains. And with Telegram’s billion-person reach, we’re bridging the gap between mainstream adoption and the benefits of multichain. The TON integration is now live on testnet! Visit the ZetaDocs to learn about building Universal Apps with TON and start testing in ZetaChain’s Testnet environment (https://www.zetachain.com/docs/developers/tutorials/testnet/). References: [1]: https://docs.ton.org/v3/documentation/smart-contracts/message-management/messages-and-transactions [2]: https://docs.ton.org/v3/concepts/dive-into-ton/ton-blockchain/cells-as-data-storage [3]: https://bridge.ton.org/ [4]: https://defillama.com/protocol/evaa-protocol [5]: https://docs.ton.org/v3/documentation/smart-contracts/transaction-fees/fees [6]: https://github.com/zeta-chain/protocol-contracts-ton