Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to techniques for performing a merge update for a database. In particular, certain embodiments of a method include generating a message comprising a first key and a first transaction associated with the first key, the first transaction indicating a transaction to perform other than for key-value pairs comprising the first key. The method further includes storing the message in a database. The method further includes merging the message with a first key-value pair stored in the database, the first-key value pair comprising the first key. The method further includes performing the first transaction based on merging the message with the first key-value pair.