A Fast Ethereum-Compatible Forkless Database

2025-12-04

AI Summary

Existing Ethereum StateDB implementations exhibit low verification throughput and high storage overhead in fork-free blockchain settings, primarily due to redundant multi-version state management and underlying key-value stores (e.g., LevelDB) ill-suited for linear state evolution. Method: This paper proposes a native state database design tailored for fork-free consensus chains: it eliminates fork-aware multi-versioning in favor of a single-state evolution model and redesigns the storage architecture to enable EVM-compatible, high-performance read/write paths. Contribution/Results: Experimental evaluation demonstrates a 10× improvement in validator node throughput, a 99% reduction in runtime storage footprint, and a 67% decrease in archival node disk usage—significantly outperforming mainstream StateDB implementations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first native state storage solution specifically engineered for fast-consensus blockchains, achieving unprecedented efficiency, compatibility, and lightweight operation.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Scalability, Parallel & Distributed Systems
• Intelligent Robots: State Estimation

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Blockchains and distributed ledgers
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

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 storage requirements for archive nodes.

Problem

• Designs a native database for non-forking blockchains
• Maintains Ethereum compatibility for DApp support
• Improves speed and reduces storage over key-value stores

Innovation

• Native database implementation for non-forking blockchains
• Ethereum-compatible state database with tenfold speedup
• Reduces storage by 99% for validators and threefold for archives