RocksDB Replacement in CBF Blockchain

[rajarshimaitra]

Description

Currently the Compact Block Filters (BIP157) blockchain backend implementation for BDK, uses RocksDB as the database to store the compact block filter data. RocksDB is quite a large dependency and it takes a significant amount of building time, while compiling bdk with compact_filters feature. Also RocksDB crate is not native rust, its a wrapper over rocksdb, which increases its compilation time even more. Thus it is desirable to replace RocksDB with a more smaller and compact DB implementation.

The required feature for a candidate DB for CBF would be

• Simple Key-Value storage.
• Automated disk flushing.
• Smaller build time than RocksDB.
• Preferably having its own rust implementation.

Expected Outcomes

• General understanding of BIP157, BIP158 and BDK CBF syncing mechanism.
• Literature survey and comparative study between different DB implementation.
• Complete replacement of RocksDB.
• Faster build and run time with new DB, demonstrated via benchmarking.

Resources

Skills Required

• Basic Familiarity with wallet syncing in general and BDK sync mechanisms.
• Basic Familiarity with BIP157, BIP158.
• Experience with git. Guide
• Basic familiarity with rust. First seven chapters of the book
• CRUD operations of standard rust based DB (ex: sqlite)

Mentor(s)
@rajarshimaitra

Difficulty: Hard

Competency Test (optional)

• Install rust, compile and run all bdk examples and tests.
• Read through the BDK docs.
• Familiarity with basic rust, should be able to write basic custom trait implementations on foreign structures.

[evanlinjin]

This is no longer relevant for BDK v1.0.