TL;DR:
The Gateway simplifies the development experience of cross-chain universal applications, achieving native operations on blockchain networks, including Bitcoin. Welcome to explore the Gateway and start your building journey!
ZetaChain's mission is to build a universal blockchain with native access capabilities, making crypto technology as open, diverse, and interconnected as the internet. Today, we are excited to announce a major upgrade to the developer experience of universal applications through the Gateway—a new interactive interface that will greatly advance ZetaChain's vision of becoming the unified entry point to a decentralized world.
Key Points
Seamless cross-chain access: applications on the universal EVM can seamlessly access any blockchain network, including the Bitcoin network, allowing users direct linking access without switching networks.
Simplifying cross-chain interactions: the Gateway introduces a unified central hub and single API, streamlining the complex cross-chain interaction capabilities of universal applications, enabling effective management between external link contracts and assets within user EOA accounts.
Progress on new ecological applications: The ZetaChain official team is actively supporting the development of new ecological applications, such as universal yield and DEX aggregators, capable of simplifying complex multi-step operations into single-click actions for users through the Gateway. For example: a single action can realize 'accepting native BTC as collateral on ZetaChain, borrowing USDC across multiple blockchain networks, transferring funds into cross-chain yield opportunities, and aggregating all rewards to the user's account.'
Support for new standards: The Gateway supports new native standards such as universal NFTs and universal tokens, empowering creators to issue tokens that can be transferred across chains and manage cross-chain liquidity on a single platform without going through the ZRC-20 protocol whitelist process.
Cross-chain innovation: Upcoming upgrades will include support for the SPL Token integration on the Solana network, making ZetaChain the 'first L1 public chain to support cross-chain operations for the three major blockchain networks (Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum) in an overall simplified manner.'
Build universal applications and reach global users
Universal applications on ZetaChain EVM are not limited to a single blockchain network; they can perform seamless cross-chain operations across any blockchain network. Unlike conventional smart contracts that operate solely on their own chain, universal applications can handle contract calls, messages, and token transfers from any chain and can even initiate corresponding actions on those chains.
For developers, this means universal applications allow them to orchestrate complex multi-step transactions across different chains, triggered by a single user action, without needing to switch between multiple interfaces or handle different blockchain protocols. The ZetaChain platform provides developers with the tools to automate cross-chain interactions, allowing them to focus on core functionality development, providing end users with an almost 'all operations one-stop execution' on-chain abstract operation experience.
Gateway unifies developer and user experiences
The Gateway upgrade introduces a unified cross-chain interface—an independent universal entry point for developers and users to interact with universal applications on any blockchain.
Advantages for developers: simplified and scalable framework
1. Unified API Interface: The Gateway minimizes complex operations through a unified API, abstracting certain characteristics and protocol details of various blockchain networks.
2. Standardized interactions: Each blockchain network has a designated Gateway contract or equivalent entity (such as the Gateway program on Solana or addresses on Bitcoin) that provides a standardized method for depositing tokens and interacting with universal applications.
3. Universal button for cross-chain calls: with the Gateway, on-chain interactions are as simple as pressing a button. For example, a single user transaction can trigger a universal application on ZetaChain, helping them exchange BNB for ETH and then purchase NFTs on Ethereum, all in one step.
Advantages for users: a unified on-chain experience
With the Gateway, users can achieve cross-chain interactions in a single transaction without switching networks. From their preferred blockchain networks (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum), users can access universal applications without connecting multiple wallets or using cross-chain bridges. This seamless integration effectively reduces cross-chain costs, enhances operational security, and offers a unified experience across all supported chains.
The Gateway improves cross-chain infrastructure on ZetaChain
In the past, developers had to manage separate TSS addresses, ERC-20 custody contracts, and connector contracts to achieve cross-chain functionality; now, the Gateway unifies these components into a single powerful API interface, providing a clear and consistent approach for calling, depositing, and managing assets. This unified approach not only simplifies the development process but also enhances the reliability of cross-chain transactions. In addition, the Gateway interface deployed on ZetaChain can mirror mappings on other compatible EVM chains, providing a unified development and user experience across multiple blockchain platforms.
The Gateway enables universal applications to manage global assets
Through the Gateway, universal applications can now achieve complex interactions between smart contracts and assets connected to external blockchain networks on behalf of users. The Gateway achieves this by extending universal smart contracts through 'withdrawAndCall' (an enhancement of the ZRC-20 withdrawal feature). Developers can initiate contract call operations without asset transfers or data loads, enjoying built-in rollback support and other benefits.
Users can now seamlessly access and interact with multiple on-chain applications. In other words, the Gateway allows an application to represent the end user, requiring only a single interaction with a dApp on ZetaChain to achieve cross-chain operations that aggregate and optimize blockchain network functionalities. Applications using the Gateway enable users to interact without switching networks or signing additional transactions.
New standards enabled by the Gateway
The Gateway upgrade enables new universal standards for chain abstraction.
Universal NFT
The universal NFT standard on ZetaChain allows developers to create smoothly functioning ERC-721 NFTs across multiple blockchain networks, simplifying the cross-chain interaction process and enabling users and developers to directly access and transfer NFTs on supported chains.
Projects built using universal NFTs include: Web3 gaming project Eureka and Moddio—Eureka, a social game built on the web, allows players to extract in-game assets such as gold coins, ships, survival items, and other supplies by minting tradable NFTs on any chain. Similarly, the virtual world creation project Moddio will provide universal NFT functionality support for developers building on its platform.
A tutorial on creating universal NFTs can be found in a YouTube video.
Universal Token Standard
The universal token standard will provide a more flexible and permissionless alternative for creating tokens that can be seamlessly transferred across chains compared to the ZRC-20 mechanism.
Specifically, the ZRC-20 mechanism relies on a 'lock-release model' that requires assets to be whitelisted by the protocol to be used cross-chain. This has significant implications for mature native assets like BTC, as it allows users to bring them into the multi-asset environment of ZetaChain.
In contrast, the universal token standard allows developers to define their own token logic (such as minting, burning, transferring) without permission and meet their specific cross-chain transfer needs. This approach eliminates protocol-level whitelisting, empowering developers to create cross-chain tokens without relying on governance or pre-approved lists.
The universal token standard is a new way to bring native interoperability for token issuance, expanding the range of Web3 use cases, with all cross-chain development experiences supported by the Gateway.
New universal applications enabled by the Gateway
The Gateway upgrade makes the development of a new generation of cross-chain applications, previously thought impossible, possible.
Universal Dust Aggregator
The Dust Aggregator is a standout application brought by the ZetaChain Gateway upgrade, addressing the issue of scattered and unused small tokens across multiple blockchains. The Dust Aggregator can consolidate DUST tokens into a single more valuable asset on the chain of the user's choice. Utilizing the ZetaChain Gateway and other technologies, seamless execution of native cross-chain exchanges and token transfers can be achieved in a single transaction, with near-atomic rollback handling and gas optimization in unlocking dormant assets effectively enhancing the usability and operational efficiency of DeFi.
Universal yield aggregator
Amana is a project aimed at simplifying the decentralized and complex cross-chain yield mining process to achieve universal yield aggregation. With the on-chain native contract linking call feature enabled by the Gateway, this application allows users to deposit assets from a certain blockchain network and automatically allocate them to liquidity mining projects across multiple blockchain networks.
For example, universal applications on ZetaChain can represent users in transferring ETH from Ethereum to a lending protocol on the Base chain, as well as engage in other cross-chain interactions, such as claiming rewards on Binance and moving them to high-yield applications, before returning these rewards to users on ZetaChain. For more information, please visit the project's official website.
Universal DEX
Eddy Finance and the recently launched ve(3,3) project Beam DEX have already utilized universal smart contracts to achieve native cross-chain exchanges, including support for native BTC tokens. With the new universal token standard and blockchain-native contract calls enabled by the Gateway, these DEX can easily support new asset trading routes connecting on-chain applications.
For example, the universal DEX can add support for CBTC on Aerodrome Finance (a leading DEX on the Base network) and through a series of multi-step cross-chain transactions, allow users to trade it with ETH on Ethereum. The Gateway handles all cross-chain interactions in the background, so applications can directly use the output results of cross-chain exchanges and drive further actions, all of which can be completed through a simple and user-friendly single interface.
Visit the Eddy Finance and Beam DEX official websites for more information.
Looking forward to Solana integration and new upgrades
Development work to extend the Gateway to new networks such as Solana is underway, with this integration initially supporting the deposit of SPL Tokens as ZRC-20 Tokens on ZetaChain. With the [withdrawAndCall] feature already open on EVM chains, universal applications will eventually be able to interact with Solana's native smart contracts and manage rollback workflows, thereby enhancing ZetaChain's cross-chain capabilities.
Further optimizations will include the Gateway's support for new asset types and improved account abstraction features to simplify authentication calls. For users, the benefits of these improvements are that they can easily perform any on-chain operations (such as transferring tokens, purchasing NFTs, etc.) with a single click in their preferred wallet and blockchain.
We look forward to sharing more progress during the development of the Gateway and ZetaChain. We will continue building a universal blockchain that can connect to any blockchain network, aiming to provide a seamless user experience and unified liquidity for the next billion users.
About ZetaChain
ZetaChain is the first universal blockchain with native access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other blockchain capabilities, dedicated to providing a seamless user experience and unified liquidity for future billions of users. Through its universal EVM, ZetaChain empowers developers to build universal applications with native cross-chain operations, creating a smoothly running crypto ecosystem from a single platform.
For more information, see the official ZetaChain account @zetablockchain, and you can join the official Discord and Telegram discussions. If you are creating projects based on ZetaChain, please contact us at partnerships@zetachain.com.
Note: Any projects mentioned in this document are third-party projects and are not related to ZetaChain.
