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Version: Current

Cardano node database

The Mithril protocol supports the certification of the Cardano node internal database, enabling fast bootstrapping of a Cardano node. This is particularly useful for full-node wallets, SPOs, and layer 2 protocols that need to operate full Cardano nodes.

To achieve this, Mithril signers and aggregators independently compute a message representing the immutable files of the Cardano node internal database and apply the Mithril protocol to jointly sign it.

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The Cardano node internal database:

  • Exceeds 150 GB on the Cardano mainnet
  • Can be bootstrapped in ~20 minutes with Mithril
  • Takes over 24 hours without Mithril.

Mithril certification​

Design of the certification of the Cardano node internal database

End-to-end certification for Cardano transactions

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Learn about the Mithril certification steps here.

Message computation​

The message is the hash of the concatenation of the immutable files in the Cardano node internal database:

  • The hash of the immutable files is computed with SHA256 of their binary content
  • The message is computed with SHA256 of the concatenation of the hashes of the immutable files
  • The last immutable file, the ledger state, and the volatile cannot be signed as the Cardano node does not deterministically compute them.

The message computation is the same on the signers and the aggregators.

Design of the certification of the Cardano node internal database

Message creation on the signers and aggregators

Authenticity verification​

The verification process operates on the full Cardano node internal database:

  • The client downloads a compressed artifact from an untrusted source (eg, an aggregator or a cloud service)
  • The client computes the message from the downloaded artifact and verifies that it is signed by a valid Mithril certificate.

Design of the certification of the Cardano node internal database

Message creation on the clients (same as on signers and aggregators)