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Parallax creates, stores and transfers large volumes of data. This data must get formatted in standardized and memory-efficient ways to allow anyone to run a node on relatively modest consumer-grade hardware. To achieve this, several specific data structures are used on the Parallax stack.

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Prerequisites

You should understand the fundamentals of Parallax and client software. Familiarity with the networking layer and the Ethereum whitepaper is recommended.

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Data structures

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Patricia merkle tries

Patricia Merkle Tries are structures that encode key-value pairs into a deterministic and cryptographically authenticated trie. These are used extensively across Parallax. More on Patricia Merkle Tries

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Recursive Length Prefix

Recursive Length Prefix (RLP) is a serialization method used extensively across Parallax. More on RLP