Top XRPL verifiers say this is very interesting for XRP holders

Bank for International Settlements tests XRP ledgers in official statistical data verification system

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has included XRP ledgers (XRPL) in a system test designed to verify the authenticity of official statistical documents. The experiment focused on increasingly serious issues in the field of digital data distribution, and XRPL verifier Vet proposed an alternative to storing proof of verification on a ledger.

On September 2, BIS released working paper No. 1374 entitled "Verifiable Official Statistics: A Blockchain-Based Approach." Researchers developed this proof-of-concept prototype on XRPL DevNet under controlled conditions. It should be emphasized that this work does not represent an upgrade of the XRPL network or the release of new products.

How the BIS verification system works

This prototype is designed to solve the problem of confirming whether statistical documents downloaded from official sources are consistent with original publications. This issue has become increasingly important as automated systems and artificial intelligence tools consume large amounts of statistical data without direct manual review.

The BIS system creates encrypted fingerprints for published files. The researchers hashed individual files and combined those hashes into a Merkle tree, producing a single root value representing the underlying data. The root value is then placed in the memo field of the Payment transaction on the XRP ledger. Once the transaction is verified, this information becomes part of the ledger's transaction history.

Vet pointed out in a tweet that the released file also contains anchored root values, ordered Merkel leaves, and signed verifiable certificates. This allows users to independently reconstruct Merkel Root and determine whether downloaded files match the original version. The BIS report stated that the median release delay was approximately three to five seconds, while the verification time was approximately one to two seconds. The system uses SDMX, a standard for exchanging statistical data, although researchers note that the architecture could also support formats such as XBRL.

This is very interesting! The Bank for International Settlements uses XRP ledgers (DevNet) in its research papers because of its immutability and public verifiability! So what did they do? Spoiler alert, they used the comment field, and I suggest using another method eventually.

Vet proposes the use of NFT

During a review of the system, Vet raised concerns about using payment comments for long-term verification. He pointed out that remarks are attached to transactions rather than exist as separate ledger objects. Therefore, continuous access to verification certificates depends on retaining relevant transaction history.

Vet proposes to switch to non-homogeneous tokens (NFT). In his scheme, the file hash could be placed in the NFT's Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Users can then hash the downloaded statistics file and compare the results to the hash value stored in the NFT. If the two hashes match, the file has not been tampered with.

Vet's proposal focuses on verifying how information remains available on the ledger. He noticed that NFT existed as a ledger object and persisted in subsequent ledger versions, unlike information contained only in payment notes.

XRPL was selected for speed and low cost

BIS chose the XRP ledger because of its low transaction costs and fast confirmation times. These features are critical for systems that require real-time or near real-time publishing and verification of records.

Researchers also provided a reference implementation through BIS Open Tech. Its document describes the system as a tool for publishing and verifying SDMX statistics on XRPL DevNet and makes it clear that it is not intended for use in a production environment.

Therefore, this experiment was designed to test XRPL's ability to support verifiable data infrastructure beyond payment related applications. Vet's NFT proposal would change the way certificates are stored while retaining the core hash and Merkel tree process used in the BIS prototype.