 
 
The US Department of Commerce will begin publishing economic statistics, including official gross domestic product (GDP) figures on the blockchain, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a White House cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain because you are the crypto president,” posited Lutnick.
The plan will involve his department releasing GDP data on-chain “so people can use the blockchain for data distribution.” According to Lutnick, the initiative will begin with GDP figures and could expand across other government agencies.
“We’re going to make that available to the entire government so all of you can do it,” Lutnick said. He added that officials are “just ironing out all the details” to implement the program.
Other governments have already embraced blockchain technology in public administration. In 2016, for instance, Estonia’s government incorporated Guardtime’s KSI blockchain into its e-Health system to accelerate blockchain-based management of patient healthcare records, making the Baltic country an early pioneer.
 
Lutnick’s initiative to leverage blockchain technology to enhance government efficiency is not a new concept in US politics. Back in April 2024, former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wanted to put the entire federal budget on-chain to enhance government transparency.
Before his public fallout with President Trump, Elon Musk, former head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), also previously mulled the implementation of blockchain technology at the government agency to boost transparency.
However, none of these U.S. initiatives were implemented.
It’s currently unclear which blockchain network Lutnick intends to use to store the economic data or how the system will help the Commerce Department or other state agencies achieve their goals.
Nonetheless, Lutnick’s proposed endeavor would mark one of the first major implementations of blockchain technology for the United States’ government economic reporting.
The latest development signals a major step in the Trump administration’s effort to embrace crypto.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/us-commerce-department-to-publish-economic-data-on-the-blockchain-howard-lutnick-says/