DeFi DEX on TON

Decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) on The Open Network (TON): the current state of affairs

WTF is DEX?

What is a decentralized exchange? To answer this, first let’s look at what a centralized exchange (CEX) is. A CEX is an exchange such as the notorious FTX or Binance or OKX etc where you can exchange one currency or token for another by placing the amount you wish to convert into their hands until the transaction (which may also be via P2P peer-to-peer or person-to-person) is complete. So, you guessed it, a decentralized exchange is different.

In a decentralized exchange (“DEX”) you keep the funds in your own wallet until the exchange takes place, and the exchange itself does not ever hold your funds, it simply provides the technology to allow such exchanges. You can however opt to put funds into the DEX for use as “liquidity” with potential earnings, but this is not the subject of today’s article on TON DEX.

Rivalry

Just as with TON wallets there is rivalry between the 5 known TON DEX projects and just as with TON wallets there is one that stands out from the rest in its features and professionalism.

We won’t attempt to investigate who really came first out of the 5, a matter of contention between them, except to say that this rivalry of “being first” was also a matter between the “first” TON NFT projects. Suffice it to say that this rush to be “first” appears to have caused at least one project (Ston.fi) to release ahead of time with incomplete and buggy features, because hours earlier another project (Scaleton’s Dedust) had already gone public.

In any case, as the projects themselves acknowledge, competition is great for the users and this is why it is good for us that there are competing projects, at least 2 or 3 of which are likely to be in the game for the long haul.

So, without further ado, and irrespective of the rights and wrong of the above, let’s dive in and take a quick look at the experience we can summarize as first users (or attempts to be users) of all 5 TON decentralized exchanges.

We’ll rank them from worst to best in their current state of overall usability.

5. Tegro DEX

We tried to use Tegro DEX but their server is down. They are behind CloudFlare (a dubious choice for other reasons, DYOR “Do Your Own Research”, although an understandable one for convenience) which first “checks the security of your browser” and then says “proceeding” only to be unable to do so and time out because the Tegro DEX website is offline.

Tegro has many products, mostly only usable in Russian language, and is building an “ecosystem” on TON. However, the DEX is currently non working.

4. Biton DEX ⭐️

For many months, since possibly being the first DEX to go public, the Biton DEX only works intermittently, at best. Their entire “ecosystem” is plagued with low quality web servers and their products, including DEX have front end and UX (usability, or “user experience”) bugs making them difficult to use.

The developer teenagers behind Biton also have a short but controversial history which we won’t go into here, but needless to say these aren’t individuals you’d want to trust to provide any kind of financial service, especially as it is not open source. The fees are also very high on Biton.

3. Ston.fi DEX ⭐️⭐️

With a friendly and service-oriented team behind Ston.fi DEX this is the first of the 3 remaining TON DEX which have current potential. We have however ranked it lowest among the three, despite its active promotion by the TON social media platforms, because it still suffers from a number of UX bugs.

As an example, it cannot be used on Mac or Safari, and it is difficult at best, or even impossible to connect wallets to it on mobile phones with small screens such as some popular iPhone models. The front-end UX leaves much to be desired and there is only one token available for swapping at this time.

2. DeDust.io DEX ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is currently the second best TON DEX. Although seemingly run by a very small group and one lone but dedicated developer, active and responsive customer support is provided with great patience and friendliness, something in fact all 3 of the top TON DEX are managing to do.

DeDust DEX is fully functional and allows for swaps of a number of popular TON tokens as well as liquidity pools. Constant improvements are being made and this is a promising DEX if it can be sustained longer term, it also has its own token SCALE. However, there is still a fair way to go in UX.

1. TonSwap DEX ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TonSwap DEX is, frankly speaking, miles ahead of all the rest. Among the 3 current contenders to be good DEX, we can say that TonSwap has achieved everything the others have not, and is highly usable and user-friendly.

Those behind this project are clearly professional and truly understand UX. The weak point of almost all projects on TON, with very few exceptions such as TonSafe Wallet, is UX. Without great UX you cannot serve the masses.

Great and friendly support, active social media, clear user interfaces (UI), properly tested on multiple platforms, great features already on release, a good range of tokens, and some very promising cross-chain ones such as USDC, WBTC, and ETH in the offering, make this a top class DEX.

Fees are also very low on TonSwap, at 0.3% for swaps.

In addition, and again unlike most TON projects with the notable exception again of the TonSafe wallet, the TonSwap DEX provides good educational articles and information — although this is something Ston.fi do exceptionally well too — and this is really important for users who want to be educated.

The branding is good and certainly the easiest and best appropriate domain name that is easily remembered: tonswap.org.

We can likely expect more surprises from this group under the banner Mint.xyz — again a good choice of domain for future developments.

Already it is clear that this group, along with Scaleton Dedust.io and Ston.fi, are actively involved in ongoing development, improvement of existing features, and introduction of new ones such as liquidity pool balance to be displayed and ability to connect and provide liquidity for additional tokens.

Recommendation

As at time of writing, the only TON DEX we can absolutely recommend, is TonSwap.org. However, Dedust.io and Ston.fi are certainly worth keeping an eye on and we believe those will soon be fully usable from a UX perspective, especially if they can team up with a strong UX partner such as TonSafe.

We can think of many features which would be useful for us TON users, and which would make both the wallets and DEX better, such as a tight integration of features inside the wallet itself. If TonSafe will implement a tight integration with a DEX we would be delighted.

Updates: remember that if you are reading this article in Email, you should visit toninfo.substack.com for latest versions as articles are may be updated with corrections or additional links and information post-publication.