This article is published on Medium.

Mina is a succinct blockchain, which means while we can verify the chain’s current state using a zero-knowledge proof, the prior history is not retained. So, if we want to analyze the chain’s history (for example, to see individual transactions), we need to obtain it from an archive node. The official implementation of an archive node stores its data to a Postgres database, which typically requires the use of recursive queries to determine the canonical chain information.