The Bank for International Settlements, the institution that serves as a central bank for the world's central banks, has published a working paper describing a blockchain-based system designed to make official economic data tamper-proof. Researchers built and tested the proof of concept on the XRP Ledger, though this represents research rather than a production deployment.
The BIS Solution
BIS Working Paper No. 1374, published on September 2, 2026, addresses a gap in how international bodies publish financial and economic datasets. These datasets use a standard called SDMX, which currently has no built-in way for users to verify that a downloaded file matches the original version. Governments and AI systems regularly pull this data, and if a third-party portal alters the numbers, there is no quick way to detect the change.
The BIS team created a solution using cryptographic fingerprints, or hashes, for each dataset. Multiple fingerprints are bundled into a single summary value called a Merkle root, which is anchored on the XRP Ledger where it is timestamped and cannot be altered. Published files carry a digitally signed credential tied to the publisher's identity, allowing users to verify both who released the data and whether it has been modified.
The prototype achieved a median publication time of 3–5 seconds and verification time of 1–2 seconds, with negligible on-chain costs. One ledger entry can cover thousands of datasets. Only fingerprints are stored on-chain, preserving confidentiality of the underlying data. The entire codebase was released as open source.
Institutional Context
This research adds to a growing list of institutional XRP Ledger use cases. JPMorgan, Ripple, Mastercard, and Ondo recently completed a tokenized Treasury settlement pilot on XRPL. Both this pilot and the BIS paper share similar engineering characteristics: low fees, fast finality, and a ledger that institutional teams can build on.
SBI, a Ripple partner, has previously participated in BIS-adjacent infrastructure work through Project Agora, demonstrating that the XRP Ledger operates in high-level institutional research environments.
Important Limitations
The tests ran on XRPL DevNet, not mainnet. This is a proof of concept and does not constitute an announcement that BIS has adopted XRPL as official infrastructure or that XRP is being used for central-bank settlement. The BIS researchers chose XRPL to prototype a public integrity layer for official statistics and released the method and code for broader use.
