What is a Merkle DAG?

mikedotexe · November 28, 2019, 4:52pm

That link 404’s now. Here’s the spec as of today:

ipfs/specs/blob/master/MERKLE_DAG.md

# ![](https://img.shields.io/badge/status-deprecated-red.svg?style=flat-square) The merkledag

**This spec has been deprecated in favor of [IPLD](https://github.com/ipld/specs/).** It offers a clearer description of how to link different kinds of hash-based structures (e.g. linking a file in IPFS to a commit in Git), has a more generalized and flexible format, and uses a JSON-compatible representation, among other improvements.

**Authors(s)**:
- [Juan Benet](https://github.com/jbenet)
- [Jeromy Johnson](https://github.com/whyrusleeping)

* * *

**Abstract**

The _ipfs merkledag_ is a directed acyclic graph whose edges are merkle-links. This means that links to objects can authenticate the objects themselves, and that every object contains a secure representation of its children.

This is a powerful primitive for distributed systems computations. The merkledag simplifies distributed protocols by providing an append-only authenticated datastructure. Parties can communicate and exchange secure references (merkle-links) to objects. The references are enough to verify the correctness of the object at a later time, which allows the objects themselves to be served over untrusted channels. Merkledags also allow the branching of a datastructure and subsequent merging, as in the version control system git. More generally, merkledags simplify the construction of Secure [CRDTs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-free_replicated_data_type), which enable distributed, convergent, commutative computation in an authenticated, secure way.

## Table of Contents

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Note: The Merkle DAG has been deprecated in favor of IPLD

Topic		Replies	Views
Can you verify my understanding of the Merkle DAG Help	0	791	May 23, 2017
Help in clarifying confusion with Merkledag and IPLD Help ipld	6	912	July 12, 2021
How to create a hash linked Merkle tree_ IPLD dag in jsIPFS Help js-ipfs , ipld	11	1987	February 15, 2021
js-ipfs 0.23.0 released \| IPFS Blog & News Blog Posts	0	304	January 11, 2022
Parents hash creating process Help go-ipfs	6	328	July 20, 2022

What is a Merkle DAG?

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