By Admin January 16, 2023 4 minute read
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Posts » What are Merkle Tree & Verkle Tree in
Blockchain? Check here.
Table of Contents
·
What is Merkle Tree in Blockchain?
·
Benefits of Merkle Tree in Blockchain
·
What is Verkle Tree in Blockchain?
·
Benefits of Verkle Tree in Blockchain
Merkle tree and Verkle
tree are some of the most important blockchain fundamentals. Moreover, the idea
of Merkle and Verkle trees has also received some attention as web3 has spread
worldwide and corporations have begun to realize the potential of web3 ecosystems.
The basic but well-known
building blocks of a blockchain are Merkle and Verkle trees. In this article,
we will see a brief comparison between these Cryptographic
algorithms.
Let’s get started!
What is Merkle Tree in
Blockchain?
Merkle tree is a data
structure, commonly called a hash tree, and is made up of hashes of various
content blocks. It’s a tree where each leaf node is identified by a
Cryptographic hash of the data block, and each non-leaf node is identified by a
Cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. It is in charge of
effectively encrypting the blockchain data and verifying the content.
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Ralph Merkle developed
Merkle trees to create more dependable digital signatures. Merkle trees are
more effective since they use less disc space than other data structures.
How does Merkle Tree
work?
There are millions of
blocks in the blockchain where endless transactions are happening at once. The
Merkle tree helps in securely encrypt data in the blockchain. Each pair’s hash
is computed individually when the transactions are formed into pairs. The
process is then repeated, pairs are created, and the parent node’s hash value
is calculated. Repeatedly hashing pairs of nodes occurs until there is only one
remaining hash, which is the tree’s root and is known as the Merkle Root.
Leaf nodes, Merkle
roots, and Non-leaf nodes are the three crucial components of the Merkle tree
in the blockchain.
· Leaf nodes – It is the hash of
the transactional data that takes place on a blockchain block. The leaf nodes
include a collection of hash values computed for each transaction.
· Non-leaf nodes – They keep track of
the hash values from their earlier hashes. It is known as intermediate nodes as
well. This process keeps going till the Merkle root is reached.
· Merkle roots – Merkle Root refers to
the Merkle tree’s base. The Merkle tree’s final hashing location is there. The
block’s header contains the data from this final block as well as the root hash
of all transactions.
The Merkle tree is built
using the bottom-up approach. This method results in the calculation of hash
values from a lower to a higher point.
Benefits of Merkle Tree
in Blockchain
· Verify the data’s
accuracy: This approach can successfully verify the data’s accuracy.
· Compared to various
other data structures, the Merkle tree takes up a comparatively small amount of
disc space.
· Merkle trees could be
broken down into smaller pieces of data for network validation.
· Adequate Confirmation:
The data format is efficient, and the accuracy check doesn’t take long.
What is Verkle Tree in
Blockchain?
Verkle trees help in
providing structure to a huge amount of data. It is done by generating a
witness that will serve as proof for each piece of data on the blockchain, but
only if access to the root’s tree is available.
John Kuszmaul invented
Verkle trees. Proof size efficiency is the key characteristic of Verkle trees.
The Verkle tree requires fewer than 150 bytes to construct the proof for the
tree, which may hold more than a billion data points.
How does Verkle Tree
work?
Verkle trees provide
decreased data sizes for large amounts of data. Verkle trees have the following
characteristics in their nodes: they can be empty, have an intermediate node
with a predetermined number of children, or have a leaf node with a key and value.
The extension node and the inner node are the two nodes that make up the Verkle
tree’s structure.
The inner node can have
numerous values that different extension nodes could represent, and the
extension node itself can represent multiple values at once. A hash of the
values of a node’s children is used to determine the value of an intermediate
node. The main restriction while creating Verkle trees is that it will take a
very long time to compile proofs if the width is quite huge. Additionally, it
will eventually lead to a reduction in the length of the proofs.
Benefits of Verkle Tree
in Blockchain
· Verkle trees, in
contrast to Merkle trees, allow for significantly reduced proof sizes for
enormous amounts of data.
· The proof length, which
is often logarithmic in state capacity, affects networking communication.
· A Verkle proof can be
easily verified by anyone with access to the top of the tree and includes proof
that a large amount of data has been preserved.
· The Verkle tree is a
use-case of the Polynomial Commitments proving system that uses mathematical
polynomial functions for data description.
Conclusion
In the Crypto world,
Merkle trees, as they were first discovered, were successfully used to encrypt and
verify data in a secure manner. However, miners have found Verkle trees to be
more beneficial and efficient for lower data volumes.