diff --git a/changelog.md b/changelog.md
index 621a03ef75..887230bd31 100644
--- a/changelog.md
+++ b/changelog.md
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@
 * [2327](https://github.com/zeta-chain/node/pull/2327) - partially cherry picked the fix to Bitcoin outbound dust amount
 * [2362](https://github.com/zeta-chain/node/pull/2362) - set 1000 satoshis as minimum BTC amount that can be withdrawn from zEVM
 * [2382](https://github.com/zeta-chain/node/pull/2382) - add tx input and gas in rpc methods for synthetic eth txs
+* [2434](https://github.com/zeta-chain/node/pull/2434) - the default database when running `zetacored init` is now pebbledb
 
 ### CI
 * [2388](https://github.com/zeta-chain/node/pull/2388) - added GitHub attestations of binaries produced in the release workflow. 
diff --git a/cmd/zetacored/root.go b/cmd/zetacored/root.go
index 28654f885c..65a4e447c3 100644
--- a/cmd/zetacored/root.go
+++ b/cmd/zetacored/root.go
@@ -114,6 +114,8 @@ func initTmConfig() *tmcfg.Config {
 		cfg.Mempool.Version = tmcfg.MempoolV1
 	}
 
+	cfg.DBBackend = "pebbledb"
+
 	return cfg
 }