All blockchains use LevelDB / RocksDB under the hood

How Blockchains Store Data

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, Sui, Aptos — they all use similar key-value databases. The difference is the data structure on top and how it shapes their capabilities.

core-insight.ts


// All blockchains use KV databases under the hood
// The MAGIC is in what structure sits on top
Bitcoin:   DB[hash(tx)]           → Merkle binary tree
Ethereum:  DB[hash(trie_node)]    → 16-way Patricia Trie
Substrate: DB[hash(pallet+name)]  → Composed Key Trie
Cosmos:    DB[hash(iavl_node)]    → Versioned AVL Tree
Solana:    DB[pubkey]             → FLAT — no tree!
Sui:       DB[object_id]          → Sparse Merkle Tree

Storage Models

₿

UTXO + Binary Merkle

No account state. Track unspent coins. Simple binary Merkle proofs.

Ξ

Merkle Patricia Trie

16-way trie. keccak256(address) = key. Powerful but storage-heavy.

●

Composed Key Trie

pallet + storage + key = composed trie path. Modular namespacing.

● Substrate / Polkadot

⚛

Versioned AVL Tree

IAVL — immutable, versioned. Historical queries built-in.

⚛ Cosmos / Tendermint

◎

Flat Account Store

No global trie! Pure flat KV. Insane throughput via Sealevel.

◈

Object Model

Every asset = unique object. Owned objects = parallel txs.

◈ Sui ⬡ Aptos

◊

Verkle Trees (future)

Polynomial commitments. Proofs 100× smaller. Stateless clients.

◊ Verkle Trees (Future ETH)

All Blockchains

Click any chain to see its storage structure in detail

UTXO + Merkle Tree

No global state. Only unspent outputs.

O(log n) — binary Merkle

LevelDB / RocksDB

Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT)

The original smart contract trie. Deep but expensive.

~10KB (many hash nodes)

High (trie update = many node rewrites)

Substrate / Polkadot

RocksDB / ParityDB

Composed Key Trie

Composed keys. Every storage slot has a structured address.

Medium (optimized trie)

Cosmos / Tendermint

GoLevelDB / RocksDB

IAVL Tree (Immutable AVL)

Versioned AVL tree. Built-in history. IBC-ready.

Medium (AVL rebalance + versioning)

📜 Contracts📚 History

RocksDB (accounts-db)

Flat Account Store

No global trie. Just accounts. Blazingly fast.

N/A (no state trie)

Very Low (direct account writes)

⚡ Parallel📜 Contracts

Object Model + Sparse Merkle Tree

Everything is an object. Own it, share it, transact in parallel.

Small (SMT fixed depth)

Low for owned objects

⚡ Parallel📜 Contracts

Jellyfish Merkle Tree (JMT)

Jellyfish Merkle — lightweight proofs, parallel Block-STM.

Small (JMT optimized)

⚡ Parallel📜 Contracts

Verkle Trees (Future ETH)

LevelDB / RocksDB

Verkle Tree (Polynomial Commitments)

Tiny proofs. Stateless clients. Ethereum's future.

~150 bytes (vs 10KB for MPT!)

Medium (polynomial operations)

Compare All Storage Models Side-by-Side

Learning Path

Start with Bitcoin

Understand UTXO and Merkle trees — the simplest model. No global state, just unspent outputs.

Deep Dive: Ethereum MPT

Learn the Merkle Patricia Trie — how keccak256(address) becomes a trie path. Interactive key builder.

Compare Everything

See how all storage models stack up — proof size, write cost, parallelism, and more.