Merkle Trees vs. Verkle Trees: Blockchain Data Structures

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While we may be familiar with the concept of a blockchain as a digital ledger that records transactions through a network of computers, the intricate workings of this technology that powers decentralization are rarely well understood. One of the core embedded feature in blockchain architecture is Merkle trees, and it has been well covered by researchers over the last decade. Verkle trees are a more recent concept in the industry’s effort to make blockchain technology more scalable and efficient. But are they related to merkle trees? And how exactly does these “trees” play a role in distributed ledger technology? Well keep reading 🙂

Merkle Trees Explained 

Merkle trees, or hash trees, are a way to organize data using a tree-like structure where every piece of data is connected from bottom to top. At the bottom, each “leaf” node contains a hash (a kind of digital fingerprint) of a data block. As you move up the tree, each higher node holds a hash that combines those of its two children. This setup ensures that Merkle trees are balanced—each node has at most two children—and makes it efficient to check and verify data, as changing any piece of data would require changes all the way up the tree.

How Merkle Trees Work

Building a Merkle tree starts by pairing off each piece of data at the bottom of the tree and computing a hash for each pair. These hashes then pair up and are hashed again, continuing this way up the tree. This process is repeated until there is just one hash left at the top, called the Merkle Root, or Root Hash. This top hash acts like a digital fingerprint for the entire set of data. By organizing the data in this way, Merkle trees make it quick and secure to check if any piece of the data has been changed, as any alteration would change the root hash.

Functionalities of Merkle Trees

• Data Integrity Verification: Merkle trees excel in verifying data integrity by providing a concise and secure method to confirm the authenticity of information. The root hash summarizes all transactions in a block, enabling users to quickly validate the inclusion of specific data without traversing the entire dataset.
• Efficient Proof Generation: One critical advantage of Merkle trees is their ability to generate compact and efficient proof structures. By utilizing hash functions and iterative hashing, Merkle trees produce succinct proofs that allow for quick and reliable verification of data inclusion or changes. These proofs are essential for ensuring the integrity of transactions and data across distributed systems.

SOURCE | Merkle Hash Tree

Verkle Trees Explained 

SOURCE | Verkle Trees

As the blockchain world continues to evolve, the need for more efficient and scalable data structures has become increasingly apparent. This is where Verkle trees come into the picture- a newer cryptographic data structure that promises to revolutionize the way blockchains handle and verify large amounts of data. Verkle trees are similar in structure to the well-known Merkle trees, which have been the backbone of the blockchain system since the inception of Bitcoin. Merkle and Verkle trees allow for the efficient verification of data integrity by organizing information into a tree-like structure and generating a cryptographic hash, or “root,” representing the entire dataset.

However, Verkle trees offer a significant improvement over their Merkle counterparts. The advantage lies in their ability to generate much smaller “witness” proofs, which are the cryptographic evidence required to verify the inclusion of a specific piece of data within the tree. Verkle trees utilize a more advanced cryptographic technique called “polynomial commitments” to potentially achieve a remarkable reduction in witness proof size. For that same billion-point dataset, a Verkle tree theoretically would require a witness proof of less than 150 bytes – a 20-30 times reduction compared to Merkle trees.

This dramatic decrease in proof size has profound implications for the scalability of blockchain networks. Smaller witness proofs mean less data needs to be transmitted and stored by network nodes, reducing the overall resource requirements and enabling the feasibility of “stateless” clients – nodes that can validate the blockchain’s state much faster without storing the entire state history.

Comparison of Merkle Trees and Verkle Trees

Criteria	Merkle Trees	Verkle Trees
Cryptography	Simpler cryptography using hash functions	Advanced cryptography using Polynomial and Vector commitments
Efficiency	Proof size grows with tree height, less scalable for large datasets	Compact proofs, less computational effort, scalability for high-throughput apps
Complexity	Simple and easy to implement	More complex than Merkle Trees, manageable complexity
Functionality	Efficient data verification through the hierarchical hashing structure	More efficient proof generation with compressed representation of node data
Security	Highly secure using cryptographic hash functions, but security is compromised if the hash function is vulnerable	Enhanced security with vector commitments, yet also dependent on the integrity of the underlying cryptographic components
Privacy	Offers limited privacy by requiring the disclosure of full branch paths for verification	Enhances privacy by enabling selective disclosure of only the necessary verification information

The Role of Merkle Trees and Verkle Trees in Cryptography

SOURCE | Merkle Trees vs. Verkle Trees

• Merkle Trees are essential in ensuring data integrity and security, especially in blockchain technology. Recursively or iteratively hashing pairs of nodes culminate in a single root hash, the Merkle Root, acting as a digital fingerprint of the dataset. 
• Verkle Trees, a newer cryptographic structure, are a more efficient and secure option than Merkle Trees. They offer compact and efficient proofs of data inclusion and non-inclusion by compressing the representation of node data types through polynomial and vector commitments. 
• Merkle Trees serve as foundational elements, offering a secure and effective data verification and authentication approach. Their hierarchical design and concise proofs are vital for maintaining data integrity in blockchain transactions and distributed systems.
• On the other hand, Verkle Trees mark a notable progression in cryptographic structures, providing enhanced efficiency, scalability, and security. With the capacity to produce compact proofs and thwart various attacks, Verkle Trees can be instrumental in high-throughput applications and scenarios requiring heightened privacy measures.

Future Applications of Verkle Trees

The potential applications of Verkle Trees are vast and promising. With their compact proof sizes, enhanced security features, and scalability, Verkle Trees are poised to revolutionize various fields, including:

• Blockchain Scalability: Verkle Trees can significantly enhance the scalability of blockchain networks by reducing computational effort and storage requirements, enabling faster and more efficient data propagation, and verification.
• Privacy-Preserving Technologies: Verkle Trees’ ability to prove data inclusion revealing lesser sensitive information makes them ideal for privacy-focused applications, such as secure multi-party computation and confidential transactions.
• Data Integrity in Cloud Storage: In cloud storage, ensuring the integrity of stored data is crucial. Verkle trees can be used to create proofs of data integrity that are more space-efficient, allowing cloud services to provide more secure storage solutions with verifiable guarantees without significantly increasing the storage burden.
• Content Addressable Networks like IPFS: Systems like IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), which store data in a decentralized manner, can use Verkle trees to efficiently prove that a file or piece of data is part of a dataset. This can enhance the performance and scalability of such networks by reducing the amount of data needed for verifications.
• Identity Verification Systems: In systems requiring identity verification, Verkle trees can manage and verify credentials or identities with high efficiency and privacy, minimizing data exposure while still ensuring that all necessary verification checks are met.
• Cryptographic Timestamping Services: Verkle trees can be utilized in timestamping services where documents or digital assets need to be time-stamped in a secure manner. The efficiency of Verkle trees in storing and verifying data can make these services more robust and faster.
• Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Verkle Trees can play a vital role in improving the efficiency and security of DeFi applications, ensuring data integrity and privacy in financial transactions.

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