diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index df9c6b2df6..4f06263aea 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
 - [#1029](https://github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos/pull/1029) Change config `async-commit` to `async-commit-buffer`, make the channel size configurable.
 - [#1034](https://github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos/pull/1034) Support memiavl snapshot strategy configuration.
 - [#1035](https://github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos/pull/1035) Support caching in memiavl directly, ignore inter-block cache silently.
+- [#1050](https://github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos/pull/1050) nativebyteorder mode will check endianness on startup, binaries are built with nativebyteorder by default.
 
 *April 13, 2023*
 
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 91ad2afe36..1eee442cf3 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -61,6 +61,9 @@ ifeq (boltdb,$(findstring boltdb,$(COSMOS_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
   BUILD_TAGS += boltdb
 endif
 
+# nativebyteorder mode will panic on big endian machines
+BUILD_TAGS += nativebyteorder
+
 ifeq (,$(findstring nostrip,$(COSMOS_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
   ldflags += -w -s
 endif
diff --git a/default.nix b/default.nix
index 9dcef46711..92e4b9b3f2 100644
--- a/default.nix
+++ b/default.nix
@@ -8,11 +8,12 @@
 , network ? "mainnet"  # mainnet|testnet
 , rev ? "dirty"
 , static ? stdenv.hostPlatform.isStatic
+, nativeByteOrder ? true # nativeByteOrder mode will panic on big endian machines
 }:
 let
   version = "v1.0.4";
   pname = "cronosd";
-  tags = [ "ledger" "netgo" network "rocksdb" "grocksdb_no_link" ];
+  tags = [ "ledger" "netgo" network "rocksdb" "grocksdb_no_link" ] ++ lib.optionals nativeByteOrder [ "nativebyteorder" ];
   ldflags = lib.concatStringsSep "\n" ([
     "-X github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/version.Name=cronos"
     "-X github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/version.AppName=${pname}"
diff --git a/memiavl/layout_native.go b/memiavl/layout_native.go
index b14161aeef..34b61345d1 100644
--- a/memiavl/layout_native.go
+++ b/memiavl/layout_native.go
@@ -8,6 +8,15 @@ import (
 	"unsafe"
 )
 
+func init() {
+	buf := [2]byte{}
+	*(*uint16)(unsafe.Pointer(&buf[0])) = uint16(0xABCD)
+
+	if buf != [2]byte{0xCD, 0xAB} {
+		panic("native byte order is not little endian, please build without nativebyteorder")
+	}
+}
+
 type NodeLayout = *nodeLayout
 
 // Nodes is a continuously stored IAVL nodes