Hassan Maishera
On Tuesday, the LayerZero team announced via X that it had launched Quick Merkle Database (QMDB), a high-performance verifiable database optimized for blockchains. Developed by LayerZero Labs, QMDB is MIT and apache-2 licensed and completely open-source.
QMDB is an SSD-optimized state database with in-memory Merkleization, cutting write amplification, and DRAM needs. It unifies world state and Merkle tree storage, uses an append-only log for state updates, and eliminates disk reads/writes during Merkleization.
It performs state reads with a single SSD read, state updates with O(1) SSD I/O, and performs Merkleization fully in-memory with zero SSD reads or writes. These operations approach the theoretical optimality regarding disk I/O complexity.
QMDB demonstrates a significant advancement in the performance and scalability of verifiable databases. It has 2.28M state updates per second (AWS i8g.8xlarge), 1M TPS (benchmarked transfers per second), and 63k updates per second sec on 15B entries running on a $540 Mini PC.
QMDB efficiently scales across both enterprise and commodity hardware, scaling up to 280B entries using a single server with high SSD capacity. It delivers 6x more updates per second than default RocksDB, demonstrating superior performance across all operation types.
LayerZero is an interoperability protocol designed to facilitate seamless communication between different blockchains. It aims to create a unified, interconnected blockchain ecosystem where assets and data can move freely across various networks. ZRO trades at $4.399, up 1% in the last 24 hours.
