Merkle Patricia Trie

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A Merkle Patricia Trie, often abbreviated as MPT, is a complex and powerful data structure that ingeniously combines the characteristics of a Merkle tree with those of a Patricia trie (Practical Algorithm To Retrieve Information Coded In Alphanumeric). This amalgamation results in a structure that is highly efficient for storing key-value pairs while also providing robust cryptographic verification of data integrity.

The “Patricia trie” aspect allows for space-efficient storage by compressing common prefixes of keys. Instead of storing each key in its entirety, nodes represent diverging paths, making lookups and insertions faster, especially for datasets with many similar keys. The “Merkle tree” component adds a layer of verifiability. Each node in the trie is identified by a cryptographic hash of its contents. This means that the root hash of the entire trie uniquely represents all the data stored within it.

Any alteration to a key-value pair will result in a change in the hash of the affected node, which subsequently changes the hashes of all parent nodes up to the root. This property makes it easy to detect tampering and to provide proofs of inclusion or exclusion of data. Merkle Patricia Tries are fundamental in blockchain technologies, like Ethereum, for managing account states and transactions efficiently and securely.

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