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Sending and Depositing Tokens

Sending and Depositing Tokens

This document describes different kinds of tokens that exist in the ZetaChain Athens 3 testnet ecosystem.

Native ZETA Token on ZetaChain​

The native token of the ZetaChain is called ZETA. It is a staking token, and is used to pay for transaction fees. ZetaChain node is built with Cosmos SDK framework and the ZETA token is implemented as a sdk.Coin. ZETA is the user-friendly symbol for the token, and the on-chain denom is azeta.

1 ZETA = 10¹⁸ azeta.

To query for account balance you can use the Cosmos HTTP API balances endpoint:

{
  "balances": [
    {
      "denom": "azeta",
      "amount": "10000000000000000000"
    }
  ]
}

To convert the value amount from azeta to ZETA, divide it by 10¹⁸. In the example above the balance is 10 ZETA.

Wrapped ZETA on ZetaChain​

ZETA can exists on ZetaChain in a wrapped form (WZETA) as a WETH9 token. WZETA is primarily used in internal liquidity pools on ZetaChain paired with native gas tokens of connected blockchains (for example, gETH/WZETA pair).

To wrap native ZETA and turn it into WZETA, send it to or use the deposit method of the zetaToken contract on ZetaChain.

ZETA Tokens on Connected Blockchains​

ZETA tokens on EVM-compatible connected blockchains (like Ethereum, Polygon and BSC) are implemented as ERC-20 tokens. You can find the contract addresses of the zetaToken on a connected blockchain on the contracts page.

Acquiring ZETA on ZetaChain​

One way to accquire ZETA on ZetaChain is to swap native gas tokens (like gETH) on a connected chain's (like Goerli) Uniswap for ZETA. Use the zetaToken contract address on the connected chain of choice to add it to Uniswap's UI, swap gETH for ZETA, then send ZETA to ZetaChain.

Foreign Gas and ERC-20 Tokens on ZetaChain​

Native gas tokens (like gETH, tMATIC, tBNB, and tBTC) and whitelisted ERC-20 tokens of connected blockchains are represented on ZetaChain as ZRC-20. ZRC-20 is an extension of ERC-20 that allows depositing tokens to and withdrawing tokens from ZetaChain.

To deposit native gas tokens to ZetaChain, send them to the TSS address on a connected chain.

To desposit ERC-20 tokens to ZetaChain, use the deposit method of the ERC-20 custody contract on a connected chain.

danger

Sending native tokens to an ERC-20 custody address will result in loss of funds.

Sending ERC-20 tokens to the TSS address will result in loss of funds.

To withdraw native gas tokens from ZetaChain, call the withdraw method of the ZRC-20 contract.

tBTC is represented on ZetaChain as ZRC-20 as well. To deposit tBTC to ZetaChain you need to send it to the TSS address on the Bitcoin testnet with the recipient's address encoded in the memo. Learn more about this in the Bitcoin section.