Commits [1] and [2] and more here.
ublk is a Linux-only io_uring-based user block device. It lets you write block devices in userspace. nbdublk is an NBD client written using ublk.
# modprobe ublk_drv # nbdublk /dev/ublkb0 nbd://remote # ublk list # blockdev --getsize64 /dev/ublkb0 # mke2fs /dev/ublkb0 # (etc) # ublk del -n 0