How Does a ‘State Root’ in Ethereum Compare to the Merkle Root in Bitcoin?
The Bitcoin Merkle Root only verifies the list of transactions in a block. Ethereum uses three Merkle Patricia Tries (MPT): a state root, a transaction root, and a receipt root.
The state root is the most comprehensive, verifying the entire global state of the network, including all account balances and contract storage. While both are hash roots that prove data integrity, Ethereum's state root provides a much richer, full-state verification compared to Bitcoin's transaction-only Merkle Root.
