US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Department of Commerce will begin publishing economic statistics, including gross domestic product (GDP) data, on the blockchain. <\/p>\n
Lutnick made the announcement during a White House cabinet meeting on Tuesday, describing the effort as a move to expand blockchain-based data distribution across government agencies. Speaking to US President Donald Trump and other government officials, he said<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president, and we are going to put our GDP on the blockchain so people can use it for data and distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n Lutnick said the initiative will begin with GDP figures and could expand across federal departments after the Commerce Department finishes \u201cironing out all of the details\u201d for the implementation.<\/p>\n Related: US Treasury\u2019s DeFi ID plan is \u2018like putting cameras in every living room\u2019<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Global adoption shows blockchain\u2019s potential for governments<\/p>\n Other governments have already adopted the technology in public administration.<\/p>\n In 2016, Estonia\u2019s government integrated Guardtime\u2019s KSI blockchain into its e-Health system to secure over a million patient records<\/a>. The same infrastructure now underpins parts of its digital ID network, making the Baltic nation an early pioneer.<\/p>\n In 2018, the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership launched the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure<\/a> (EBSI), a permissioned network built on Hyperledger Besu. Member states such as France, Slovenia and Denmark host validator nodes, giving it a decentralized structure designed to deliver cross-border public services that are verifiable and trustworthy.<\/p>\n In 2021, Singapore and Australia trialed a blockchain system to issue and verify cross-border trade documents<\/a>, reducing paperwork and cutting costs. And in 2024, California\u2019s Department of Motor Vehicles digitized 42 million car titles<\/a> on a permissioned Avalanche blockchain to curb lien fraud and streamline vehicle transfers.<\/p>\n Before his fallout with US President Donald Trump, Elon Musk floated the idea of running parts of the US government on the blockchain<\/a>, a proposal that drew comparisons to Europe\u2019s EBSI project.<\/p>\n Related:\u00a0GENIUS Act to spark wave of \u2018killer apps\u2019 and new payment services: Sygnum<\/a><\/p>\n Blockchain can record data, but can\u2019t control its accuracy<\/p>\n The plan comes as Trump has repeatedly questioned the reliability of US economic data.\u00a0<\/p>\n In April, he downplayed a 0.3% first-quarter GDP contraction as a tariff-driven blip, and in May, he dismissed<\/a> a Congressional Budget Office forecast of 1.8% growth as biased while predicting the economy could expand<\/a> by as much as 9%.<\/p>\n On Aug. 1, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a July jobs report showed only 73,000 new positions and sharp downward revisions to earlier months, accusing her of releasing \u201crigged\u201d data<\/a> and sparking alarm among economists. <\/p>\n