BIS taps XRPL in prototype test to authenticate published statistics

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which serves as a forum for cooperation among central banks on monetary and financial matters, has published a new paper exploring a blockchain-based approach to verifying the origin and integrity of official statistics distributed through SDMX, the standard used by international organizations to exchange statistical data and metadata.

Researchers developed and tested a proof-of-concept on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The system creates a cryptographic fingerprint for each dataset, and where needed, individual time series, then records a single summary value for batches of datasets on the ledger. The published file also contains a digitally signed credential identifying the publisher.

The system allows users to verify both who issued the data and whether the figures have been altered using the published file and a single XRPL lookup. Tests showed median publication times of three to five seconds and verification times of one to two seconds under controlled conditions.

The researchers found that batching can make on-chain fees negligible, with a single ledger entry able to cover thousands of datasets. Only cryptographic fingerprints, rather than the underlying data, are recorded on XRPL, preserving confidentiality. The approach can also be extended to other structured reporting formats such as XBRL.