Why is it said that the TON team cannot do EVM L2?

Author: Jaleel Plus Six, BlockBeats

There have been rumors recently that 'TON is launching EVM L2, but I think this is impossible, at least for now.

Before formally analyzing the reasons, it is necessary to briefly mention the core technical features of TON (you can skip the technical content by sliding down three lines).

First of all, it needs to be clear that TON on-chain Smart Contract runs on TON Virtual Machine (TVM), which is completely incompatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Secondly, the Smart Contract programming language used by the TON chain is FunC, which is a language designed specifically for the TON blockchain. Unlike traditional programming languages, FunC emphasizes the Decentralization technology of the asynchronous paradigm.

In addition, TON adopts dynamic Sharding technology, which automatically expands the Block chain to a longer Sharding chain based on network load. TON's architecture includes a mainchain and long working chains, which can be further Sharded, and each Sharding chain can process partial transactions.

Why is it impossible for the TON official to do EVM Layer 2?

From the rise in Token price this year, TON's rise in Token price is the most obvious, far surpassing other top public chains.

If you purchased TON on January 1, 2024, you have now gained more than triple the returns. Currently, TON's market capitalization has surpassed DOGE, ranking ninth in market capitalization.

Along with the price pump, the ecological data of TON has also increased, but it is obvious that it has not reached the level where Layer 2 is needed.

Once the bridge is built, the villagers will leave

TON does not want its TVL to flow from TON to EVM. Analyzing the current TVL and Liquidity data of TON can provide a clearer understanding of this point.

From the TVL data, TON's TVL data has been maintained at around 10 million US dollars before this year. However, in the 7 months after entering 2024, TON's TVL data has been pumping, almost reaching a 70x rise.

According to data from DefiLlama, the total value locked (TVL) of TON is currently $718 million, of which Stable Coin accounts for $571 million. This indicates that TON has a certain financial foundation in the field of Decentralized Finance, but compared to other top public chains, the scale is still insufficient.

In contrast, the Decentralized Finance ecosystem of Ethereum is much larger, with a total value locked (TVL) of about $54.2 billion, about 80 times that of TON.

However, from a certain perspective, the initial intention of TON's design is not to aim for high TVL.

"The native Decentralized Finance users of TON account for less than 10% of the total users. One of the main differences between TON and most L1 projects is that most projects, such as small games, operate off-chain, with on-chain Settlement," said Vivi, head of research at the TON Foundation.

So from this point of view, TVL is not important at all, or it can be said that TON is not good at improving TVL data in the first place.

And TON is also 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 $16.10 million.

Looking at the inflow and outflow of Liquidity, if EVM compatibility is achieved one day, TON does not seem to have a particularly great advantage in being able to attract long-term Liquidity from the ETH network.

With the support of Telegram's over 800 million active users, Telegram's users are a 'sky-high wealth' or a 'huge fortune', and the TON chain has a natural advantage in user growth. For TON, once it achieves EVM, it will be working for Ethereum.

No car, why build highways

In the past two months, the leading DEXs on TON, including STON.fi and DeDust, have seen a rise in TVL of nearly 20 times.

Just looking at the rise multiple seems impressive, but the specific data is actually very limited.

The total volume of TON on-chain DEX is 4.05 billion US dollars, with a buying and selling volume of 10.76 million US dollars, and the daily transaction volume is approximately around 200 transactions.

It can be observed that a key catalyst for the rapid rise of TON Decentralized Finance data is the partnership with Tether, which expands USDT on TON and promotes payments on Telegram. This is consistent with what was mentioned earlier, the main difference between TON and most L1 projects is that most projects are off-chain businesses, and on-chain is only for settlement.

Although there are some DEX and stake platforms running on-chain with TON, the number is limited, and there is no mature lending protocol or CDP (Collateralized Debt Position) system.

Compared with the volume data of other public chains, the difference is even more apparent. The Decentralized Finance applications in the TON ecosystem are still in the early stages of development and have not yet reached maturity.

In the widely circulated chat records in the recent group, vivi also bluntly stated: 'On the TON mainchain, there are only 2 dex, 1 lending, and 0 CDP, so we will first promote our own TVM.'

At the same time, we all know that the speed and low cost of TON are its proud features, and it set the Guinness World Record for processing speed in 2023, reaching 104,715 transactions per second.

The Transaction Cost is also not high. The specific costs are as follows: the average fee for sending any amount of TON is 0.0055 TON; the average fee for sending any amount of custom JetTON is 0.037 TON; the average fee for minting 1 Non-fungible Token is 0.08 TON; the cost of storing 1MB of data on TON for one year is 6.01 TON.

At this stage, TON has almost no demand for Layer 2, because in the current ecological environment, Layer 1 is already fast and cheap enough.

So where do the rumors come from?

So how did the rumor that TON will become a second layer come about? I found that coindesk was the first channel to spread the misreading, and they have now corrected the explanation.

In fact, the TON layer 2 is being developed by a third-party project called TAC, which is not related to the official TON.

The TAC project, named, will utilize Polygon's Chain Development Kit (CDK), which is a customizable toolkit that allows developers to create their own layer 2 Blockchains based on Polygon's zero-knowledge technology, as well as Polygon's AggLayer, which is used to address the interoperability of fragmented Blockchains.

Polygon, zk, 2 layers, sounds like everything should be there, but I don't think this is what TON currently needs.

TVM is the only first-class citizen

In the clarification of team members, it can be seen that TVM is also a key term while TON official is not doing EVM L2.

For example, Anthony Tsivarev, Director of Ecosystem Development at the TON Foundation, said, "Have you heard of the second layer on TON based on the Polygon stack? Some people may think this is the official version of TON, but it is not. This is developed independently by a third-party team on TON. We believe in TVM!"

TON game leader Inal Kardan even stated that TVM is the only first-class citizen in TON.

Looking back at the White Paper, TON officials clearly stated that TVM (Threaded Virtual Machine) is the top priority in their blockchain development strategy.

For TON, all the latest developments in Decentralization technology will ultimately be based on the asynchronous paradigm. As a core component of the TON blockchain, it is designed specifically for the efficient and secure operation of Smart Contracts. Unlike EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), TVM emphasizes the asynchronous paradigm, enabling it to handle more complex Decentralization applications (DApps).

For example, TONNEL Network utilizes the latest update of TVM to implement complex computation and proof verification, enabling it to enforce Zero-Knowledge Proof on Smart Contracts, thereby enhancing on-chain privacy. TONNEL Network utilizes TVM for private transactions and deployment of ZkNFT standards, further demonstrating the important role of TVM in the TON ecosystem.

It is impossible for the official TON to do EVM Layer 2, but is it possible in the future? The White Paper of TON has a section that can basically explain 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 Layer 2 can exist, but it's not necessary. Because TON can fully utilize its own Sharding technology to create a new working chain.

In the future, the only possibility for TON to be EVM compatible is for developers. Because on TON, to run Smart Contract, you have to use FunC, a specially created programming language. For most developers who are currently proficient in Solidity, they have to "readjust" their way of thinking.

In short, the main reason is the difficulty of development, which is also why there are few Defi products in the current TON ecosystem. 'The second layer of TON is mainly that 99% of people cannot develop mainchain projects,' vivi also said very directly.

However, at this point, TON officials may also have other solutions, such as the TVM SDK has started to support multiple programming languages.

So this is why I think it's impossible for the TON official to do EVM Layer 2, at least not now.