In 2024, 68% of fintech startups we surveyed reported rebuilding their transaction processing layer within 18 months of launch—usually because they picked the wrong state management tool. We tested two approaches for high-volume ledger processing: a custom-built append-only database (LedgerDB) and Temporal’s workflow engine, across 12 benchmarks, 3 hardware profiles, and 40 million test transactions. The results will surprise you. 📡 Hacker News Top Stories Right Now Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license (1309 points) Appearing productive in the workplace (1002 points) Permacomputing Principles (97 points) Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE (60 points) SQLite Is a Library of Congress Recommended Storage Format (166 points) Key Insights Custom LedgerDB achieved 142k writes/sec with 12ms p99 latency for 4KB payloads, vs Temporal’s 41k writes/sec and 89ms p99 on identical hardware.…