A Fast Ethereum-Compatible Forkless Database
Herbert Jordan, Kamil Jezek, Pavle Subotic, and Bernhard Scholz

TL;DR
This paper presents a new Ethereum-compatible database optimized for non-forking blockchains, achieving significant speed and space efficiency improvements over traditional key-value store-based implementations.
Contribution
It introduces a native database design tailored for fast, non-forking blockchains, replacing legacy key-value store architectures for better performance and space savings.
Findings
Tenfold speed improvements for validators
99% reduction in storage space for validators
Threefold decrease in storage for archive nodes
Abstract
The State Database of a blockchain stores account data and enables authentication. Modern blockchains use fast consensus protocols to avoid forking, improving throughput and finality. However, Ethereum's StateDB was designed for a forking chain that maintains multiple state versions. While newer blockchains adopt Ethereum's standard for DApp compatibility, they do not require multiple state versions, making legacy Ethereum databases inefficient for fast, non-forking blockchains. Moreover, existing StateDB implementations have been built on key-value stores (e.g., LevelDB), which make them less efficient. This paper introduces a novel state database that is a native database implementation and maintains Ethereum compatibility while being specialized for non-forking blockchains. Our database delivers ten times speedups and 99% space reductions for validators, and a threefold decrease in…
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Taxonomy
TopicsDistributed systems and fault tolerance · Advanced Database Systems and Queries · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
