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TL;DR Gateway streamlines the developer experience for deploying Universal Apps that operate natively across any blockchain including Bitcoin. Discover Gateway, and start building!

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. Today, we’re excited to announce a major upgrade to the developer experience for building Universal Apps with Gateway — a new interface that advances ZetaChain’s vision to become the Universal Entrypoint to the decentralized world.

Key Takeaways

• Apps on the Universal EVM (Universal Apps) can natively access any blockchain, including Bitcoin, and be accessed directly from those chains without requiring users to switch networks.

• Gateway introduces a unified hub and single API to streamline cross-chain interactions including the ability for Universal Apps to manage complex interactions with external native connected-chain contracts and assets in externally-owned accounts (EOAs) on behalf of users.

• Projects are actively developing new apps like Universal Yield and DEX Aggregators, which use Gateway to simplify complex multi-step operations into a single click for users e.g. accept native BTC lending/collateral into a vault on ZetaChain, borrow USDC on multiple chains against that collateral, swap and deposit into yield opportunities on those chains, and aggregate all rewards to a user’s account.

• Gateway natively supports new standards like Universal NFTs and Universal Tokens, empowering creators to issue cross-chain transferrable tokens and manage liquidity across chains in a single place without needing to go through the ZRC-20 protocol whitelisting process.

• Upcoming upgrades include the Solana integration with support for SPL tokens, making ZetaChain the first public L1 platform to support dApps that natively span all three major chains (Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum) in a general and simple way.

Build Universal Apps, access users everywhere

A Universal App on ZetaChain’s EVM is not limited to a single blockchain; it operates seamlessly across any connected chain. Unlike regular smart contracts that only work on their own chain, Universal Apps can handle contract calls, messages, and token transfers from any chain — and can even initiate actions on those chains.

What does this mean for developers? Universal Apps allow you to orchestrate complex, multi-step transactions across different chains, all triggered by a single user action. No more juggling multiple interfaces or dealing with different blockchain protocols. ZetaChain’s platform gives developers the tools to automate cross-chain interactions so you can focus on your application’s core functionality and provide an abstracted experience that feels to the end-user like everything is in one place.

Gateway unifies developer and user experience

The Gateway upgrade introduces a unified, cross-chain interface — a single, universal entry point for developers and users to interact with Universal Apps on any blockchain.

Developer Benefits: A Simplified, Scalable Framework

1. Unified API: Gateway minimizes complexity with a streamlined API that abstracts the intricacies of individual chain characteristics and protocols.

2. Standardized Interactions: Each blockchain has a designated Gateway contract or equivalent (like a Gateway program on Solana or address on Bitcoin), providing standardized methods for depositing tokens and interacting with Universal Apps.

3. Universal Remote for Cross-Chain Calls: With Gateway, interactions are as easy as pressing a button. For example, a single user transaction can trigger a Universal App on ZetaChain to send your BNB, swap for it for ETH, and then buy an NFT on Ethereum, in one step.

User Benefits: A Unified Experience for All Chains

With Gateway, users enjoy cross-chain interactions in a single transaction without network switching. From their preferred chain (e.g., Bitcoin or Ethereum), users can access Universal Apps without needing multiple wallets or bridges. This seamless integration lowers fees, enhances security, and provides a consistent experience across all supported chains.

Gateway improves on ZetaChain’s cross-chain infrastructure

Previously, developers managed separate TSS addresses, ERC-20 custody contracts, and connector contracts to enable cross-chain functionality. Gateway unifies these components into a single robust API, offering clear, consistent methods for calling, depositing, and managing assets. This unified approach not only simplifies development but also improves the reliability of cross-chain transactions. Further, the Gateway interface deployed on ZetaChain is mirrored on other EVM-compatible chains, providing a cohesive development and user experience across multiple platforms.

Gateway lets Universal Apps manage your assets everywhere

With Gateway, Universal Apps can now manage complex interactions with native connected-chain contracts and assets on external chains on behalf of users. Gateway achieves this by extending the ability of Universal Smart Contracts with withdrawAndCall, an extension to the withdraw capabilities of ZRC-20. Developers can initiate these contract calls without asset transfers or data payloads and benefit from built-in revert support.

Users can now access and interact with apps across multiple chains seamlessly. In other words, Gateway enables an app that can aggregate and optimize opportunities across all connected chains on behalf of an end-user, requiring only a single interaction with a dApp on ZetaChain. Apps using Gateway can build experiences where the user never has to switch his network or sign additional transactions.

New standards enabled by Gateway

The Gateway upgrade enables new Universal standards for chain abstraction.

Universal NFT

The Universal NFT standard on ZetaChain lets you build ERC-721s NFTs that function seamlessly across multiple blockchains. This standard simplifies cross-chain interactions, allowing users and developers to access and transfer NFTs natively across supported chains.

A number of projects building with Universal NFT include Web3 gaming projects Eureka and Moddio. The web based social game Eureka will enable players to withdraw in-game assets like gold currency, ships, survival items, and other utilities by minting them as tradeable NFTs on any connected chain. Similarly, virtual world creator Moddio will support Universal NFT functionality for developers building on their platform.

Learn more about how to build Universal NFTs in our latest video tutorial.

Universal Token Standard

The Universal Token standard will provide a more flexible and permissionless alternative to the ZRC-20 mechanism for creating seamless, cross-chain transferrable tokens.

ZRC-20 relies on a lock-release pattern and requires assets to be whitelisted by the protocol for cross-chain use. It makes sense for established assets like BTC, allowing you to bring them natively into the multi-asset ZetaChain environment.

The Universal Token standard, on the other hand, allows developers to permissionlessly define their own custom token logic (e.g., minting, burning, transferring) and address their specific cross-chain movement needs. This approach eliminates the need for 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 and direct way to bring native interoperability to token issuances and will broaden the scope of Web3 use cases. The cross-chain development experience for Universal Token is streamlined and powered by Gateway.

Learn more about how to leverage the Universal Token standard in your Web3 project.

New Universal Apps enabled by Gateway

The Gateway upgrade enables a new generation of cross-chain applications that were previously not possible.

Universal Dust Aggregator

A compelling app made possible by ZetaChain’s Gateway is a Dust Aggregator which solves the problem of scattered, unusable token amounts across multiple blockchains. The Dust Aggregator consolidates “dust” tokens into a single, more valuable asset on a chain of the user’s choice. It leverages ZetaChain’s Gateway and other technologies to seamlessly execute native cross-chain swaps and transfers in a single transaction. Its near-atomic revert handling and gas optimization unlock dormant assets, improving DeFi usability and efficiency.

Learn more about the open-source Dust Aggregator project in an update this week.

Universal Yield Aggregator

Amana is one project aiming to simplify the often fragmented and complex process of cross-chain yield farming and realize the concept of a Universal Yield Aggregator. The app uses native connected-chain contract calls enabled by Gateway to allow users to deposit assets from one chain and automatically allocate them to yield opportunities across multiple chains.

For example, a Universal App on ZetaChain can move ETH on Ethereum into a lending protocol on Base on behalf of the user. Additional cross-chain interactions are possible such as claiming and moving rewards to a high yield app on Binance, and then withdrawing those rewards back to a user on ZetaChain.

With Gateway, projects like Amana can help crypto users optimize their yields with a single click, avoiding the typical complexities of multi-chain farming like bridging and multiple steps to acquire gas assets.

Learn more about Amana and follow their developments on ZetaChain here.

Universal DEX

Eddy Finance and the recently launched ve(3,3) Beam DEX already leverage Universal Smart Contracts to enable native cross-chain swaps including support for native BTC. With the new Universal Token standard and native connected-chain contract calls enabled by Gateway, these DEXs can easily support trading routes for new assets across connected-chain apps.

For example, a Universal DEX can add support for CBTC on Aerodrome Finance (the leading DEX on Base network) and enable users to trade it for ETH on Ethereum in a series of multi-step cross-chain transactions. Gateway handles all cross-chain interactions in the background so applications can take the output of a cross-chain swap and do something else with it, all in a single easy-to-use user interface.

Visit Eddy Finance and Beam DEX to access their solutions and learn more.

Looking forward to Solana support and new upgrades

Actively under development is the extension of Gateway to new chains such as Solana. The integration will initially support SPL token deposits as ZRC-20 tokens on ZetaChain. Eventually, with withdrawAndCall functionality, already available on EVM chains, Universal Apps will be able to interact with Solana’s native smart contracts and manage revert workflows, broadening ZetaChain’s cross-chain capabilities.

Further enhancements include Gateway’s support for new asset types and improved account abstraction to simplify authenticated calls. The benefits for users will be that they can easily act on any chain (transfer tokens, buy NFTs, Etc.) in one click and from their preferred wallet and blockchain.

We look forward to sharing more developments on Gateway and ZetaChain as we continue building the Universal Blockchain with native access to any blockchain and aim to offer seamless UX and unified liquidity to the next billions of users.

About ZetaChain

ZetaChain is the first Universal Blockchain with native access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and more, offering seamless user experience and unified liquidity to the next billions of users. With its Universal EVM, ZetaChain empowers developers to build Universal Apps that operate natively across any blockchain, creating a fluid crypto ecosystem from a single platform.

Follow ZetaChain on Twitter @zetablockchain and join the conversation on Discord and Telegram. Reach out to [email protected] if you’re building on top of ZetaChain.

Any projects mentioned are 3rd party, not ZetaChain.