What is a jetton: tokens on TON explained
A jetton is a fungible token on The Open Network (TON), defined by the TEP-74 standard.
Jettons are TON’s version of fungible tokens, described in the TEP-74 standard. USDT on TON, issued by Tether, is a jetton, as are many other tokens in the TON ecosystem. Wallets such as Tonkeeper and the wallet in Telegram show jettons alongside TON.
The architecture is unusual. Each jetton has one master contract that stores general information such as the total supply. Balances are not kept in the master; instead, every holder has a separate jetton wallet contract that stores their balance. A transfer is a chain of messages: the sender’s wallet tells its jetton wallet to send tokens, which sends a message to the recipient’s jetton wallet, which can then notify the recipient’s main wallet.
Because transfers are message chains, the sender pays fees in TON for each step, and a wallet with jettons but no TON cannot send them. A transfer can also carry a text comment. Some services use this comment to identify the payer, which is a frequent source of errors when customers forget to fill it in.
For merchants, practical points are: the payment must be matched to the official jetton master, not a token that merely uses the same name; the recipient address should be checked in its user-friendly form (bounceable or non-bounceable), and amounts must respect the jetton’s decimals, which are defined in its metadata.
Moonvex accepts TON and USDT on TON. Each payment or customer gets its own address, so no comment or memo is needed to match a payment to an order.
Key facts about jettons
- standard: TEP-74
- one master contract plus a jetton wallet per holder
- transfer fees are paid in TON
- a transfer can include a text comment