Overview
- BIS‑affiliated researchers released Working Paper No. 1374 on Sept. 2 that describes an open‑source prototype using the XRP Ledger DevNet to record cryptographic fingerprints of SDMX statistical files.
- The system normalizes SDMX files, computes SHA3‑512 hashes, combines those hashes into Merkle roots, and writes a single on‑chain reference so recipients can rehash a file and check it against the ledger record.
- The prototype also issues a W3C Verifiable Credential linked to an XRP Ledger address so verifiers can confirm both that a file is unchanged and that it came from the claimed publisher.
- Controlled DevNet tests showed median publication latency of about three to five seconds and verification times of roughly one to two seconds, but those results come from a test network, one developer workstation, and synthetic workloads rather than a hardened mainnet deployment.
- The authors warn the code is experimental and unmaintained and say production use would need governance, key management, revision policies, security hardening, and operational design; they also note Merkle batching means wide adoption would not necessarily cause large direct XRP burn without different anchoring choices.