TL;DR:
The Gateway simplifies the development experience of cross-chain general 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 for blockchain, making crypto technology as open, diverse, and interconnected as the internet. Today, we are pleased to announce a significant upgrade to the developer experience of general applications via the Gateway—a new interactive interface that will greatly advance ZetaChain's vision of becoming a unified entry point in the decentralized world.
Key Points
Seamless Cross-Chain Access: General applications on the EVM (i.e., general applications) can seamlessly access any blockchain network, including the Bitcoin network, without switching networks, achieving direct linked access.
Simplifying Cross-Chain Interactions: The Gateway introduces a unified central hub and single API, simplifying the complex cross-chain interaction capabilities of general applications, enabling effective management between external linked contracts and assets within user EOA accounts.
Progress on New Ecosystem Applications: The ZetaChain team is actively supporting the development of new ecosystem applications, such as universal yield and DEX aggregators, which can leverage the Gateway to simplify complex multi-step operations into single-click actions for users. For example: a single action can achieve 'accepting native BTC as collateral on ZetaChain, borrowing USDC across multiple blockchain networks, transferring funds into cross-chain yield opportunities, and aggregating all rewards into the user's account.'
New Standard Support: The Gateway supports new native standards such as general NFTs and general Tokens, empowering creators to issue tokens that can be transferred across chains and supporting the management of 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 SPL Tokens in the Solana network, making ZetaChain the 'first L1 public chain to support seamless cross-chain operations across three major blockchain networks (Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum) in a simplified manner.'
Build general applications to reach global users
General applications on ZetaChain EVM are not limited to a single blockchain network; they can execute seamless cross-chain operations on any blockchain network. Unlike traditional smart contracts that only work on their own chain, general applications can handle contract calls, messages, and token transfers from any chain, and can even initiate corresponding operations on those chains.
For developers, this means that general applications allow them to orchestrate complex multi-step transactions across different chains, triggered by a single user action, without switching between multiple interfaces or dealing with different blockchain protocols. The ZetaChain platform provides developers with tools to automate cross-chain interactions, allowing them to focus on core functionality development of applications, providing end-users with a near 'one-stop execution' on-chain abstraction experience.
Gateway unifies the developer and user experience
The Gateway upgrade introduces a unified cross-chain interface—an independent universal entry point for developers and users to interact with general applications across any blockchain.
Advantages for developers: Simplified, scalable framework
1. Unified API Interface: The Gateway minimizes complex operations through a unified API, abstracting the characteristics and protocol details of certain blockchain networks.
2. Standardized Interactions: Each blockchain network has a designated Gateway contract or equivalent entity (such as the Gateway program on Solana or an address on Bitcoin), providing a standardized method for depositing Tokens and interacting with general 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 general application on ZetaChain to help exchange BNB for ETH, and then purchase NFTs on Ethereum, all in one step.
Advantages for Users: Unified On-Chain Experience
With the Gateway, users can achieve cross-chain interactions in a single transaction without switching networks. From their preferred blockchain network (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum), users can access general applications without connecting multiple wallets or using cross-chain bridges. This seamless integration effectively reduces cross-chain fees, enhances operational security, and provides a unified experience across all supported chains.
Gateway improves cross-chain infrastructure on ZetaChain
In the past, developers had to manage independent TSS addresses, ERC-20 custodial 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 calls, deposits, and asset management. This unified approach not only simplifies the development process but also enhances the reliability of cross-chain transactions. Furthermore, the Gateway interface deployed on ZetaChain can mirror its mapping on other EVM-compatible chains, providing a unified development and user experience across multiple blockchain platforms.
The Gateway allows general applications to manage global assets
Through the Gateway, general applications can now achieve complex interactions between smart contracts and assets connected to external blockchain networks on behalf of users. The Gateway extends the general smart contract through 'withdrawAndCall' (an extension of ZRC-20's withdrawal function) to achieve this goal. Developers can initiate contract calls without asset transfers or data load and enjoy benefits such as built-in rollback support.
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 by only needing to interact with the dApp on ZetaChain once to achieve cross-chain operations that aggregate and optimize the functionality of blockchain networks. Applications using the Gateway can help users avoid switching networks or signing additional transactions.
New standards enabled by the Gateway
The Gateway upgrade has enabled new general standards for chain abstraction.
General NFTs
The general NFT standard on ZetaChain allows developers to create smoothly running 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 general NFTs include: Web3 game project Eureka and Moddio— a social game built on the web end that 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 general NFT functionality support for developers building on its platform.
General NFT creation tutorial can be found on YouTube.
General Token Standard
The general Token standard will provide a more flexible and permissionless alternative to create Tokens that can be seamlessly transferred across chains than the ZRC-20 mechanism.
Specifically, the ZRC-20 mechanism relies on the 'lock-release model', requiring assets to be included in the protocol whitelist for cross-chain use. This is significant for native mature assets like BTC, as it allows users to bring them into the multi-asset environment of ZetaChain.
In contrast, the general 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 removes protocol-level whitelisting, empowering developers to create cross-chain Tokens without relying on governance or pre-approved lists.
The general Token standard is a new way to bring native interoperability to Token issuance, expanding the range of Web3 use cases, with all cross-chain development experiences supported by the Gateway.
New general applications enabled by the Gateway
The Gateway upgrade makes the development of a new generation of cross-chain applications that were previously impossible possible.
Universal Dust Aggregator
The Dust Aggregator is a standout application brought about 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 chosen by the user on-chain. By leveraging the Gateway and other technologies of ZetaChain, 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 DeFi's usability and operational efficiency.
Universal Yield Aggregator
Amana is a project aimed at simplifying the dispersed and complex cross-chain yield mining processes and achieving universal yield aggregation. With the on-chain native contract linkage calling functionality 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, general applications on ZetaChain can represent users in transferring ETH from Ethereum onto the lending protocol on the Base chain and can also perform other cross-chain interactions, such as claiming rewards on Binance and moving them into high-yield applications, then returning these rewards to users on ZetaChain. More information can be found on the project’s official website.
General DEX
Eddy Finance and the recently launched ve(3,3) project Beam DEX have already utilized general smart contracts to achieve native cross-chain exchanges, including support for native BTC tokens. With the new general Token standard and blockchain native contract calling enabled by the Gateway, these DEXs can easily support new asset trading routes connecting on-chain applications.
For example, general DEXs can increase support for CBTC on Aerodrome Finance (the leading DEX on the Base network) and enable users to trade it with ETH on Ethereum via a series of multi-step cross-chain transactions. 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 operations, all of which can be completed through a simple and user-friendly single interface.
Visit Eddy Finance and Beam DEX's official website for more information.
Looking forward to Solana integration and new upgrades
Development work to extend the Gateway to new networks like Solana is underway, and this integration will initially support depositing SPL Tokens as ZRC-20 Tokens on ZetaChain. With the already available [withdrawAndCall] function on EVM chains, general applications will ultimately be able to interact with Solana's native smart contracts and manage rollback workflows, thereby expanding ZetaChain's cross-chain capabilities.
Further optimizations will include support for new asset types and improved account abstraction functionalities in the Gateway, simplifying identity authentication calls. For users, these improvements benefit them by allowing them to perform any on-chain operations (such as transferring tokens, purchasing NFTs, etc.) easily with a single click on their preferred wallet and blockchain.
We look forward to sharing more progress with everyone during the development of the Gateway and ZetaChain. We will continue to build a universal blockchain that can connect to any blockchain network, aiming to provide a seamless user experience and unified liquidity for the next generation of billions of users.
About ZetaChain
ZetaChain is the first universal blockchain with native access capabilities to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and more, committed to providing seamless user experiences and unified liquidity for billions of users in the future. Through its universal EVM, ZetaChain empowers developers to build general applications that natively operate across chains, creating a smoothly functioning crypto ecosystem starting from a single platform.
For more information, please visit the official account of ZetaChain @zetablockchain, and you can also join the official Discord and Telegram discussions. If you are creating related projects based on ZetaChain development, please contact us at partnerships@zetachain.com.
Note: Any projects mentioned in this document are third-party projects and are not related to ZetaChain.
