BIS Working Paper 1374 · Published September 2, 2026
The BIS built its proof of verifiable official statistics on the XRP Ledger.
A proof-of-concept from researchers at the Bank for International Settlements anchors cryptographic fingerprints of official statistical datasets on XRPL. Don’t take their word for it — or ours. Verify one yourself.
Live verifier · XRPL testnet
BIS:WS_CBPOL — central bank policy rates
The sample dataset shipped in the BIS reference implementation, anchored with the BIS protocol. Nothing here is precomputed: your browser fetches the file, the verifier recomputes the fingerprint and reads the ledger on every press.
- 1
Fetching dataset
SDMX-ML 2.1 · published as sample data in the BIS reference implementation
- 2
Computing fingerprint
Exclusive C14N → SHA3-512 → domain-separated Merkle root
- 3
Looking up XRPL anchor
Transaction D722A78B…32D515FC on XRPL testnet · ledger 20,483,558
- 4
Compare roots
Recomputed Merkle root vs the root written in the transaction memo
What just happened
01
Fingerprint
The dataset is canonicalised (Exclusive XML C14N) and hashed with SHA3-512. Any change — one digit, one attribute — produces a different 512-bit fingerprint. Whitespace and formatting do not.
02
Anchor
Fingerprints are wrapped in a domain-separated Merkle root and written to the XRP Ledger as a transaction memo. Once the ledger validates, the root is immutable and time-stamped by the network, not by the publisher.
03
Attestation
The paper binds a publisher identity key to its XRPL address through an on-chain attestation registry and embeds a W3C Verifiable Credential in the file, so a reader knows who anchored the data. This page verifies the anchor; identity attestation is the next layer.
Read the paper: BIS Working Papers No 1374 · Read the code: bis-med-it/sdmx-blockchain (Apache-2.0). The prototype publishes in 3–5 seconds and verifies in 1–2, per the authors.
What this is — and isn’t.
This is
- A published BIS working paper by five BIS staff, with a tested, open-source XRPL reference implementation.
- A real anchor on the XRP Ledger: the BIS sample dataset, hashed with the BIS code path, root written to a validated ledger, verifiable by anyone in seconds.
- A verifier that fails when it should. The tamper test alters one digit and the ledger says no.
This isn’t
- A production BIS system. The authors call it “a proof of concept rather than a hardened production system.”
- A BIS endorsement of XRP, an adoption decision, or a Ripple partnership. None of those appear in the paper.
- A BIS-written anchor. The BIS prototype ran on the XRPL DevNet with throwaway wallets, so no BIS anchor exists to check. The anchor on this page was written by xrpl.network on XRPL testnet — transaction D722A78B92…, ledger 20,483,558 — using their published protocol, byte-for-byte.
Network note: this anchor currently lives on the XRPL testnet. The mainnet anchor is written from a founder-controlled key in a signing ceremony; when it lands, this page switches to mainnet and the testnet record stays linked for the audit trail.
The pattern is now public. We operate it.
The BIS just demonstrated the pattern: anchor the fingerprint, attest the publisher, verify in one lookup. That pattern is what xrpl.network is built on — every metric on this platform traces to the ledger or a named source, and our anchoring and credential stack implements the same architecture this paper describes. The verification layer of the XRPL economy is being born. We intend to operate it.
Next on this page: every Daily Intelligence Brief we publish gets anchored and becomes verifiable here, the same way. We don’t just cover the verification layer. We publish through it.
Early access
xrpl.network opens September 15. Founding members get in first.
$ curl -s https://xrpl.network/api/verify?dataset=ws_cbpol
→ { "status": "match", "verified": true, "network": "testnet", "fingerprint": { "algorithm": "SHA3-512", … }, "ledger": { "ledgerIndex": 20483558, … } }
$ curl -s -X POST https://xrpl.network/api/verify --data-binary @any-anchored-sdmx-file.xml
→ verifies any SDMX-ML 2.1 file carrying a sji:anchor descriptor against the ledger. No auth, no cache, CORS open.
Agents: this endpoint will be exposed as an MCP tool with x402 payment at launch. · BIS reference implementation · anchored file · source file · publisher account