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About ZetaChain
What is ZETA?

What is ZETA?

ZetaChain's coin ZETA is used to pay the gas fees for ZetaChain smart contracts and additionally used to secure the PoS ZetaChain blockchain by bonding/staking/slashing. ZETA is also at the core of ZetaChain's cross-chain transfer, swaps, message delivery, and security. ZETA is one of the first multi-chain coins that is natively issued across multiple chains and layers.

Users can directly move the ZETA coin from any chain A to chain B. The mechanism is a one way peg (i.e. burning X amount on chain A and then minting X amount on chain B).

We use our own coin ZETA to represent value cross-chain because:

  • Unlike the more common two-way pegging, there is no wrapping and therefore no multiple representation of the same underlying asset.
  • The only (native) value that can go cross-chain is via the ZETA coin, which reduces attack surface substantially, resulting in an easier to understand audit and therefore higher security. For example, we can check total supply at the contract mint site.
  • Users can pay ZETA for the cross-chain service that ZetaChain provides, and for gas on the destination chain, in a single step/bundle.