diff --git a/dig/dig.go b/dig/dig.go
index 2c1c0fa..c31fbe0 100644
--- a/dig/dig.go
+++ b/dig/dig.go
@@ -1103,6 +1103,11 @@ func dbtype(abitype string, d []byte) any {
 		return false
 	case abitype == "string":
 		return string(d)
+	case abitype == "bytes":
+		if len(d) == 0 {
+			return []byte{}
+		}
+		return d
 	default:
 		return d
 	}
diff --git a/dig/dig_test.go b/dig/dig_test.go
index 4a44228..e21f58a 100644
--- a/dig/dig_test.go
+++ b/dig/dig_test.go
@@ -349,6 +349,12 @@ func TestDBType(t *testing.T) {
 			&negInt{uint256.NewInt(0).Neg(uint256.NewInt(1))},
 			reflect.Ptr,
 		},
+		{
+			"bytes",
+			nil,
+			[]byte{},
+			reflect.Slice,
+		},
 	}
 	for _, tc := range cases {
 		got := dbtype(tc.abitype, tc.input)
diff --git a/indexsupply.com/shovel/docs/index.md b/indexsupply.com/shovel/docs/index.md
index 9de238b..ba1b183 100644
--- a/indexsupply.com/shovel/docs/index.md
+++ b/indexsupply.com/shovel/docs/index.md
@@ -104,6 +104,7 @@ The following resources are automatically deployed on a main commit:
 
 On main but not yet associated with a new version tag.
 
+- empty decoded bytes are stored as an empty byte array instead of NULL
 - accept multiple URLs per source for redundancy
 - fix db encoding for negative int{..256} values
 - fix `error="getting receipts: no rpc error but empty result"`