State is a mapping between addresses and account states implemented as a modified Merkle Patricia tree or trie.
A Merkle tree or trie is a type of binary tree composed of a set of nodes with:
- Leaf nodes at the bottom of the tree that contain the underlying data
- Intermediate nodes, where each node is the hash of its two child nodes
- A single root node formed from the hash of its two child nodes representing the top of the tree
- Address -> Account State
- Modified Merkle-Patricia Tree
- Binary Tree composed of:
- Leaf Nodes -> Data
- Intermediate Nodes -> Combined Hash of the two child nodes
- Single Root Node -> Root Hash