Written by: Jaleel Jialiu, BlockBeats
There have been some rumors recently that "TON is launching EVM L2, but I think this is impossible, at least not now.
Before formally analyzing the reasons, we need to briefly mention the core technical features of TON (scroll down three lines to skip the technical content).
First of all, it should be made clear that the smart contracts on the TON chain run on the TON Virtual Machine (TVM), which is completely incompatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Secondly, the smart contract programming language used by the TON chain is FunC, a language designed specifically for the TON blockchain. Unlike traditional programming languages, FunC emphasizes decentralized technology over asynchronous paradigms.
In addition, TON uses dynamic sharding technology to automatically expand the blockchain into more shard chains according to the network load. TON's architecture consists of a main chain and multiple working chains. The working chain can be further sharded, and each shard chain can process part of the transaction.
Why is it impossible for TON official to build EVM layer 2?
Judging from the increase in token prices this year, TON’s token price growth is the most obvious, far exceeding other leading public chains.
If you bought TON on January 1, 2024, you would have earned more than three times the profit by holding it until now. Currently, TON's market value has surpassed Dogecoin, and its market value ranking has risen to ninth place.
TON’s ecological data also rose along with the coin price, but it is obvious that it has not reached the level where a second layer is required.
The bridge was opened, and the villagers left.
TON does not want its TVL to flow out of TON to EVM. Analyzing the current TON TVL and liquidity data, we can understand this more clearly.
Judging from the growth of TVL data, before this year, TON's TVL data has remained around 10 million US dollars, but in the 7 months since 2024, TON's TVL data has been rising, almost reaching a 70-fold increase.
According to DefiLlama data, TON’s current total locked value (TVL) is $718 million, of which stablecoins account for $571 million. This shows that TON already has a certain financial foundation in the DeFi field, but compared with other top public chains, the scale is still insufficient.
In comparison, Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem is much larger, with Ethereum’s total locked value (TVL) currently at approximately $54.2 billion, about 80 times that of TON.
However, from a certain perspective, TON was not originally designed with high TVL as its goal.
"TON's native DeFi users account for less than 10% of the total number of users. The difference between TON and most L1s is that most projects, such as mini-games, are off-chain businesses, with settlement done on the chain," said Vivi, head of research at the TON Foundation.
So from this point of view, TVL is not important at all, or in other words, the track that TON excels in is not to increase TVL data.
Moreover, TON is not good at retaining liquidity. The total amount transferred from Ethereum to TON is $18.95 million, while the total amount transferred from TON to Ethereum is $16.1 million.
In terms of the inflow and outflow of liquidity, if EVM compatibility is achieved one day, TON does not seem to have any particularly big advantages and will be able to absorb long-term liquidity from Ethereum.
With over 800 million active users on Telegram, TON Chain has a natural advantage in user growth. For TON, once EVM is implemented, it will be working for Ethereum.
Without sports cars, what is the point of building a highway?
In the past two months, the TVL of leading DEXs on TON, including STON.fi and DeDust, has also increased by nearly 20 times.
The growth multiples alone seem astonishing, but the specific data is actually very limited.
The total transaction volume of DEX on the TON chain is US$405 million, the buy and sell transaction volume is US$10.76 million, and the number of transactions per day is about 200.
It can be observed that a key catalyst for the rapid growth of TON DeFi data is the partnership with Tether, which has expanded USDT on TON and promoted payments on Telegram. This is the same as mentioned earlier. The difference between TON and most L1s is that most projects are off-chain businesses, and only settlement is done on the chain.
Although there are some DEXs and staking platforms running on the TON chain, they are limited in number and there is no mature lending protocol or CDP (collateralized debt position) system.
This is even more obvious when compared with the transaction volume data of other public chains. DeFi applications in the TON ecosystem are still in the early stages of development and have not yet reached maturity.
In a chat record that has been widely circulated in the group recently, Vivi also said bluntly: "When the TON main chain has only 2 dex, 1 lending, and 0 CDP, we will also promote our own TVM first."
At the same time, we all know that TON's speed and low cost are its proud features. In 2023, it set the Guinness World Record for processing speed, reaching 104,715 transactions per second.
The transaction costs are not high either. Specific costs: the average cost of sending any amount of TON is 0.0055 TON; the average cost of sending any amount of customized JetTON is 0.037 TON; the average cost of minting 1 NFT is 0.08 TON; the cost of storing 1MB of data on TON for one year is 6.01 TON.
At the current stage, TON has almost no demand for the second layer, because in the current ecological environment, the first layer is already fast and cheap enough.
So where did the rumor come from?
So where did the rumor that TON was going to build a second layer come from? I found that the first channel that misinterpreted it was Coindesk, and they have now corrected the explanation.
In fact, the second layer of TON is a third-party project called TAC, which has nothing to do with TON officials.
The TAC project, called Project TAC, will utilize Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK), a customizable toolkit that allows developers to create their own layer 2 blockchains based on Polygon’s zero-knowledge technology, and Polygon’s AggLayer, an interoperability layer for addressing blockchain fragmentation.
Polygon, zero knowledge, 2 layers, it sounds like everything is there, but I don’t think this is what TON needs right now.
TVM is the only first-class citizen
While team members clarified that TON officials are not working on EVM L2, TVM is also a key word.
For example, Anthony Tsivarev, Director of Ecosystem Development at the TON Foundation, said: “Have you heard about Layer 2 on TON, which is based on the Polygon stack? Some people may think that this is the official version of TON, but it is not. This is independently developed by a third-party team on TON. We believe in TVM!”
Inal Kardan, head of TON Games, said bluntly: TVM is the only first-class citizen in TON.
Looking back at the white paper, TON officials clearly stated in their blockchain development strategy that TVM (Threaded Virtual Machine) is its top priority.
For TON, all the latest developments in decentralized technology will ultimately be based on the asynchronous paradigm. As a core component of the TON blockchain, it is designed to run smart contracts efficiently and securely. Unlike EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), TVM emphasizes the asynchronous paradigm, enabling it to handle more complex decentralized applications (DApps).
For example, TONNEL Network is leveraging TVM’s latest updates to enable complex computation and proof verification, which enables it to implement zero-knowledge proofs on smart contracts, thereby enhancing on-chain privacy. TONNEL Network’s use of TVM for private transactions and deployment of the ZkNFT standard further demonstrates the importance of TVM in the TON ecosystem.
It is impossible for TON to officially build an EVM layer 2, so is it possible in the future? In the TON white paper, there is a paragraph that basically explains this:
-Is there a need for L2 on the TON?
-At any transaction cost, there will always be applications that cannot sustain such a fee but can function at a much lower cost. Similarly, regardless of the latency achieved, there will always be applications that require even lower latency. Therefore, it is conceivable that there might eventually be a need for L2 solutions on the TON platform to cater to these specific requirements.
In my opinion, TON can have a second layer, but it is not necessary, because TON can fully utilize its own sharding technology to create a new work chain.
In the future, the only possibility for TON to be EVM-compatible is for developers. Because on TON, to run smart contracts, you need to use FunC, a specially created programming language. For most developers who have learned Solidity, they need to "readjust" their way of thinking.
In short, it is difficult to develop, which is why there are so few DeFi products in the TON ecosystem. "The second layer of TON is mainly because 99% of people cannot develop projects on the main chain," Vivi said very directly.
But at this point, TON officials may also have other solutions. For example, TVM SDK has begun to support multiple programming languages.
So this is why I think it is impossible for TON official to do EVM layer 2, at least not now.