diff --git a/XDCxDAO/leveldb.go b/XDCxDAO/leveldb.go
index a302cecf9e45..2a76162d4ca4 100644
--- a/XDCxDAO/leveldb.go
+++ b/XDCxDAO/leveldb.go
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ func NewBatchDatabaseWithEncode(datadir string, cacheLimit int) *BatchDatabase {
 }
 
 func (db *BatchDatabase) IsEmptyKey(key []byte) bool {
-	return key == nil || len(key) == 0 || bytes.Equal(key, db.emptyKey)
+	return len(key) == 0 || bytes.Equal(key, db.emptyKey)
 }
 
 func (db *BatchDatabase) getCacheKey(key []byte) string {
diff --git a/XDCxDAO/mongodb.go b/XDCxDAO/mongodb.go
index 53dee7585ba6..3d2efef31715 100644
--- a/XDCxDAO/mongodb.go
+++ b/XDCxDAO/mongodb.go
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ func NewMongoDatabase(session *mgo.Session, dbName string, mongoURL string, repl
 }
 
 func (db *MongoDatabase) IsEmptyKey(key []byte) bool {
-	return key == nil || len(key) == 0 || bytes.Equal(key, db.emptyKey)
+	return len(key) == 0 || bytes.Equal(key, db.emptyKey)
 }
 
 func (db *MongoDatabase) getCacheKey(key []byte) string {