diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 4d25acee6..45fb4c725 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,13 +13,12 @@
 ### Bug Fixes
 
 - [#773](https://github.com/cosmos/iavl/pull/773) Fix memory leak in `Import`.
+- [#801](https://github.com/cosmos/iavl/pull/801) Fix rootKey empty check by len equals 0.
 
 ### Breaking Changes
 
 - [#735](https://github.com/cosmos/iavl/pull/735) Pass logger to `NodeDB`, `MutableTree` and `ImmutableTree`
-
 - [#646](https://github.com/cosmos/iavl/pull/646) Remove the `orphans` from the storage
-
 - [#777](https://github.com/cosmos/iavl/pull/777) Don't return errors from ImmutableTree.Hash, NewImmutableTree, NewImmutableTreeWIthOpts
 
 ### API Changes
diff --git a/iterator.go b/iterator.go
index 205519931..131a2bdda 100644
--- a/iterator.go
+++ b/iterator.go
@@ -269,7 +269,7 @@ type NodeIterator struct {
 
 // NewNodeIterator returns a new NodeIterator to traverse the tree of the root node.
 func NewNodeIterator(rootKey []byte, ndb *nodeDB) (*NodeIterator, error) {
-	if rootKey == nil {
+	if len(rootKey) == 0 {
 		return &NodeIterator{
 			nodesToVisit: []*Node{},
 			ndb:          ndb,
diff --git a/iterator_test.go b/iterator_test.go
index 8d27a7232..f7a7ed0f4 100644
--- a/iterator_test.go
+++ b/iterator_test.go
@@ -366,4 +366,8 @@ func TestNodeIterator_WithEmptyRoot(t *testing.T) {
 	itr, err := NewNodeIterator(nil, newNodeDB(dbm.NewMemDB(), 0, nil, log.NewNopLogger()))
 	require.NoError(t, err)
 	require.False(t, itr.Valid())
+
+	itr, err = NewNodeIterator([]byte{}, newNodeDB(dbm.NewMemDB(), 0, nil, log.NewNopLogger()))
+	require.NoError(t, err)
+	require.False(t, itr.Valid())
 }