I maintain a non-custodial escrow protocol that runs on two blockchains: Base, an Ethereum L2, and TON, the chain behind Telegram. Same product, same core logic on paper: lock funds, deliver work, release on approval, handle disputes.
I expected the second implementation to be a port. It wasn't. The two chains disagree so fundamentally about how a contract should be structured that writing the same feature twice forced me to rethink what "the same" even means. This post is about those differences, the design decisions each model pushed me toward, and what I'd tell anyone about to make the same jump.
Light on code, heavy on the reasoning. The interesting part was never the syntax.
The two mental models
The single most important difference is not the language. It's the execution model underneath.
