Merkle Patricia Tries

Merkle Patricia Tries are the data structure used by Ethereum to store the state of the blockchain. They combine a Merkle tree, which allows for efficient verification of data integrity, with a Patricia trie, which provides efficient updates and lookups.

This structure is essential for state root validation, as it allows the network to prove that a specific account balance or contract state is part of the global state without scanning the entire database. It is the backbone of how rollups manage and prove the validity of their internal states before anchoring them to the main chain.