In a landmark step toward government data transparency, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced Tuesday that the Department of Commerce will begin publishing key economic statistics, including GDP data, on the blockchain.
Speaking during a White House cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump and senior officials, Lutnick said the move reflects the administration’s embrace of crypto and decentralized technology. “The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president,” Lutnick told Trump. “We are going to put our GDP on the blockchain so people can use it for data and distribution.”
The initiative will begin with gross domestic product (GDP) figures and may expand across other federal agencies after technical integration details are finalized.
The U.S. joins a growing list of governments using blockchain for public sector innovation. Estonia, for example, implemented Guardtime’s KSI blockchain in 2016 for securing over a million e-Health records. Europe’s EBSI, launched in 2018, enables cross-border services through a decentralized, permissioned blockchain maintained by multiple EU member states.
In Asia-Pacific, Singapore and Australia piloted a blockchain-based trade document verification system, while California’s DMV digitized 42 million vehicle titles on Avalanche’s blockchain in 2024 to fight fraud.
The U.S. government’s blockchain push also comes amid a trust deficit in official data. President Trump has repeatedly criticized government economic reports. In recent months, he dismissed GDP and job numbers as unreliable, culminating in the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on August 1 after a weak jobs report.
While blockchain ensures tamper-proof, auditable dissemination of data, experts caution it doesn’t solve issues related to data accuracy or political influence. Still, the move is being hailed as a leap toward transparent, decentralized public data infrastructure, reinforcing Trump’s growing crypto-friendly policy stance under the recently signed GENIUS Act.
Further expansions to employment, inflation, and trade data may follow once the GDP rollout is complete.
