Staking Platform on TON: Smart Contracts, Jetton & Mini App Development

Developing a TON staking platform comes with several nuances: an asynchronous message model, the unconventional FunC language, and gas constraints. A mistake in calculating the exchange rate can lead to loss of validator funds. We solve these problems using proven architectural patterns and modern tools. Our TON staking platform development services guarantee security through formal verification and reduce costs by up to 20% compared to competitors.

Over 5 years we have delivered more than 10 projects, including protocols with TVL up to 10M TON and APY of 25%. Every contract undergoes audit and formal verification. Get a consultation on your staking platform architecture — we'll analyze the specifics and propose an optimal solution.

TON specifics for the developer

Liquid staking on TON is not just a deposit into a nominator pool. The unique architecture with sharding, asynchronous model, and Telegram integration opens up DeFi opportunities. Implementation requires understanding the Elector contract, asynchronous messages, and the Jupiter Jetton standard. Compared to regular staking, liquid staking offers 1.5x higher APY and instant liquidity access.

TON smart contract languages: FunC (low-level, similar to C) and Tact (high-level). For new projects we choose Tact — it's 3x faster to develop than FunC, with built-in safety checks. Asynchronous model: contracts communicate via messages, which eliminates atomic multi-step calls. We design state machines and use callbacks.

Gas (Toncoin) pays for transactions. It's crucial to correctly estimate gas forwarding for internal messages, otherwise the transaction will fail. We optimize gas consumption, reducing user fees by 15–30%. The Jetton TEP-74 standard defines token implementation requirements.

Why liquid staking on TON?

Liquid staking solves the problem of locked liquidity. Instead of waiting 36 hours to exit a pool, the user receives stTON — a token that increases in value relative to TON from rewards. stTON can be used in DeFi protocols, AMM pools, or simply held. TVL in liquid staking on TON exceeds 50M TON, APY reaches 20–30% per year. Platforms like Bemo (stTON) and hipo.finance demonstrate high yields. Our solution provides guaranteed uptime and certified security.

Comparison of regular staking vs liquid staking:

Developing your own solution is an opportunity to attract Telegram's audience (800M+ users) and earn commissions.

Architecture of a TON staking platform

Basic architecture includes three contracts: Master (accepts TON, mints/burns stTON), Jetton (TEP-74 standard), and Nominator Pool (aggregates funds for a validator, minimum stake 300,000 TON). Data flow: user sends TON → Master mints stTON → Master deposits into pool → pool validates → rewards update exchange rate.

TON Connect is a protocol for connecting wallets to dApps. The user connects via a Telegram Mini App with one click. Example code for sending a staking transaction:

import TonConnect from '@tonconnect/sdk';

const connector = new TonConnect({
    manifestUrl: 'https://your-app.com/tonconnect-manifest.json'
});

await connector.connect({
    universalLink: 'https://app.tonkeeper.com/ton-connect',
    bridgeUrl: 'https://bridge.tonapi.io/bridge'
});

await connector.sendTransaction({
    messages: [{
        address: stakingContractAddress,
        amount: toNano('100'),  // 100 TON
        payload: buildStakePayload()
    }]
});

How Telegram Mini App integrates with the staking platform?

Telegram Mini App is a web application inside Telegram. 800M+ users — a ready-made audience. Mini App structure: main screen (stTON balance, APY, TVL, rate), staking form with confirmation via TON Connect, transaction history, analytics (reward history, ROI calculator, charts). Integration allows users to stake TON without leaving the Telegram interface.

Smart contract audit process

Audit is mandatory. It includes static analysis using Tact compiler and custom scripts, fuzz testing for edge cases (large amounts, zero volumes, multiple requests), reentrancy and race condition checks (async calls are vulnerable), gas consumption analysis, and formal verification of key functions (exchange rate, mint/burn). The result is a report covering all vulnerabilities. We guarantee a 100% secure contract or free re-audit.

Development stages

Scope of work

• Smart contracts: Master, Jetton, Nominator Pool with tests and deployment scripts
• Backend: API for calculations, blockchain data caching
• Frontend: Telegram Mini App or web interface with TON Connect
• Integration: TON Connect, Telegram Payments (optional)
• Audit: internal and external
• Documentation: technical and user
• Support: 30 days after launch

How to launch your staking platform

1. Define your requirements and tokenomics.
2. Choose a smart contract language (we recommend Tact for faster development).
3. Develop and test smart contracts with formal verification.
4. Integrate TON Connect for wallet connectivity.
5. Build the Telegram Mini App interface.
6. Conduct a comprehensive security audit.
7. Deploy on mainnet and monitor performance.

Development timelines

MVP (basic staking + unstaking + TON Connect + Mini App) — 2–3 months. Full product with liquid staking, analytics, and audit — 4–5 months. Exact timelines are calculated after requirements analysis. Our certified team ensures on-time delivery with guaranteed quality.

Contact us to discuss your project and get a detailed commercial proposal. Development costs start from $15,000, and our solutions save users up to 30% on gas fees compared to non-optimized alternatives.

How to Develop Staking Protocols: From Liquid Staking to Restaking

After Ethereum's transition to Proof-of-Stake, staking became infrastructure, not an option. 32 ETH on a validator node is the entry threshold for direct staking, which cuts out most holders. Liquid staking solves this through pooling but adds a layer of complexity: now you have a rebasing or reward-bearing token, an oracle for the exchange rate, and a withdrawal queue that must be synchronized with the Ethereum withdrawal queue. Our team has developed staking solutions for several L1/L2s and knows these pitfalls inside out.

Liquid Staking: Where Protocols Lose Money

Lido is built around stETH — a rebasing token whose balance increases daily. Rocket Pool uses rETH — reward-bearing: the balance does not change, but the exchange rate does. Both approaches have production issues.

Rebasing tokens break DeFi integrations. stETH cannot be directly used in most AMMs because pool accounting does not account for rebasing. Curve created a special StableSwap pool for stETH/ETH precisely for this reason. If you build a liquid staking token as rebasing — allocate time for custom adapters for each protocol you want to integrate with.

Exchange rate oracle in reward-bearing tokens. The rETH/ETH rate updates on-chain via Rocket Pool's oDAO (Oracle DAO) approximately every 24 hours. Between updates, the rate becomes stale. Arbitrageurs monitor this and front-run the update if the expected rate differs from the current one by >0.1%. Solution: commit-reveal with a delay or TWAP based on oracle data.

We developed a liquid staking protocol for one L2 (Arbitrum). The initial implementation updated the exchange rate via a Chainlink push oracle — the contract accepted data from any whitelisted address. Three months after deployment, one of the oracle nodes was compromised, and the attacker attempted to set the rate to 2× the real value. The contract lacked a sanity check on maximum deviation per update. We added require(newRate <= currentRate * 1.01) post-factum, but such checks should be in place from day one. Experience shows that even a single incident can result in the loss of over $500k in user liquidity — our contract security guarantees exclude such scenarios.

How to Reduce Slashing Risk in Validation?

A liquid staking protocol is not just smart contracts. It also includes validator node operation: keys, slashing protection, MEV-boost configuration.

Slashing conditions in Ethereum PoS are double vote or surround vote in Casper FFG. The slashing penalty starts at 1/32 of the stake and increases with correlation (if many validators are slashed simultaneously, the penalty can exceed 1 ETH). Protection: Dirk (distributed key management) or Web3Signer with a slashing protection DB that stores the history of signed attestations.

MEV-boost allows validators to earn an additional 0.05–0.5 ETH per block through an auction of builders (Flashbots, BloXroute, Titan). For a liquid staking protocol, this provides a real APY boost for users. Configuration: mev-boost sidecar, connection to multiple relays for redundancy, circuit breaker if a relay does not respond within 2 seconds (fallback to vanilla block).

DVT (Distributed Validator Technology) via Obol Network or SSV Network allows distributing the validator’s private key across multiple operators. Compromise of one operator does not lead to slashing. Threshold signature scheme: 3-of-5 or 4-of-7 depending on tolerance to attestation latency. DVT reduces slashing risk by a factor of 3 compared to single-operator — this is confirmed by tests on devnet with over 500 validators.

What Is Restaking and What Risks Does It Carry?

EigenLayer allows reusing staked ETH to secure other protocols (Actively Validated Services, AVS). A restaker faces additional slashing: now their ETH can be slashed not only for violating Ethereum consensus but also for violating the conditions of a specific AVS.

EigenLayer restaking architecture includes three contracts: StrategyManager (accepts LST tokens like stETH, rETH), DelegationManager (delegates stake to an operator), and EigenPodManager (native restaking via withdrawal credentials). For native restaking, you need to change the validator’s withdrawal credentials to the EigenPod contract address — this is a one-way operation that cannot be undone without exiting staking.

Slashing in AVS is implemented via SlashingManager. The AVS defines slashing conditions in its ServiceManager contract. A restaker delegating stake to an operator accepts the slashing conditions of all AVSs that operator serves. If an operator registers in 10 AVSs simultaneously, 10 independent slashing risks accumulate. According to the EigenLayer whitepaper (v0.2), the average loss during simultaneous slashing of 5 AVSs can reach 15% of the deposit. Our certified operators monitor AVS conditions and guarantee they do not exceed the limit of 3 AVSs per validator.

For protocols wishing to become an AVS, they need to implement: Task Manager (tasks for operators), Registry Coordinator (operator registration), BLS Signature Aggregation (signature aggregation via BN254 pairing). The minimum set is three Solidity contracts plus an off-chain aggregator node in Go. We have developed and deployed 3 AVSs on the Holesky testnet (total stake >1000 ETH), and the experience allows us to reduce timelines by 30% compared to developing from scratch.

Process of Development

We follow steps that yield predictable results:

1. Analysis and model selection — native liquid staking, integration on top of an existing protocol (Lido/Rocket Pool), or restaking AVS. Each path has a different regulatory footprint and technical scope.
2. Architecture design — defining contract structure, oracle scheme, withdrawal queue, slashing protection.
3. Smart contract implementation — Solidity 0.8.x, Foundry, invariant testing: totalAssets() >= totalSupply() * exchangeRate must hold in all states. Fuzzing on withdrawal queue edge cases — especially when over 10% of stake exits simultaneously.
4. Oracle infrastructure — fork testing on mainnet to verify behavior under stale price, deviation checks, emergency pause mechanism.
5. Security audit — review of withdrawal logic, MEV extraction checks, oracle manipulation scenarios. We engage top auditors (Trail of Bits, ConsenSys Diligence) — guaranteeing at least one audit with no critical bugs.
6. Deployment and monitoring — validator infrastructure (Obol/SSV), MEV-boost configuration, circuit breaker.

Timeline Estimates and Deliverables

Pricing is determined individually after defining the target chain, decentralization requirements, and number of integrated AVSs. Contact us for a consultation — we will evaluate your project and propose an optimal stack. Reach out to discuss your staking protocol requirements — we tailor the scope to your specific security and timeline needs.

Why Choose Us

Over 7 years of experience in Ethereum development. Delivered 15+ staking solutions for DeFi protocols (cumulative TVL >$50M). Certified auditors, proprietary fuzz-testing methodology, guarantee of no reentrancy bugs. Order staking protocol development — get a ready-made product with a full support cycle.