The Bank for International Settlements has tested the XRP Ledger as a potential system for verifying official statistics on-chain, according to a working paper that examined how statistical agencies could enable independent verification of published data without disrupting existing distribution methods.
The proof-of-concept, described in BIS Working Paper No 1374, anchors cryptographic fingerprints of public datasets to the ledger. The system publishes fingerprints in three to five seconds and verifies them in one to two seconds, while keeping confidential data off-chain by recording only hashes rather than underlying numbers.
Technical Approach
The system normalizes files using Canonical XML 1.1, hashes them with SHA3-512 at both file and per-series levels, and collapses those hashes into a Merkle root. This root is written to the Memos field of an XRPL Payment transaction, with each file carrying a W3C Verifiable Credential signed by the publisher's identity keys. The method extends to other formats including XBRL.
Cost and Efficiency
The approach requires no smart contracts, avoiding associated gas costs and contract risks. XRPL's base fee of 10 drops (0.00001 XRP) makes individual anchoring close to free. Batching multiple datasets into a single ledger entry can reduce per-dataset on-chain costs to a fraction of a cent each.
The authors cited the ledger's fast consensus finality and published technical analysis of its consensus protocol as relevant factors. The tests ran on XRPL's DevNet, a test network that shares the mainnet's transaction format and close cadence.
Limitations and Context
The paper describes the build as an experimental proof-of-concept, noting that a production service would require hardware-backed signing, pinned validator nodes, and formal load testing. The authors emphasized that the ledger certifies only what was published, by whom, and when, and stated the paper reaches no adoption decision and gives no endorsement of XRP. The views are attributed to the authors personally, not to the BIS or its member central banks.
The BIS has previously tested public blockchains in other contexts, including Project Mariana, which trialed wholesale central bank digital currency settlement with the central banks of France, Singapore, and Switzerland.
