The U.S. Commerce Department is also going to disseminate official economic data via blockchain technology, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed on Tuesday. This is part of a larger push to study applications of digital technologies to increase transparency and accountability in the public.
According to Lutnick, the department is finalizing its rollout plan. “The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain,” he said. Lutnick also explained that the initiative will allow government figures to be accessed in a new, tamper-resistant format. He added, “We’re just ironing out all of the details so we could do it.”
For context, the project will capture some of the major indicators such as gross domestic product. Lutnick said that this was also in line with the rest of the administration-wide adoption of digital infrastructure. Addressing U.S. President Donald Trump, he remarked, “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.”
This comes following the January 2025 executive order of the Trump government, which directed the federal agencies to encourage the development of digital assets and to create a more supportive regulatory environment. That directive has specifically singled out blockchain as a potential platform to modernise data reporting and access to information that governments were holding in public.
As reported by CNF, Trump also declared himself a Bitcoin maxi, while predicting that the BTC price will reach $1 million.
Government spending on blockchain is not a totally new idea. The D.O.G.E. initiative (or Department of Government Efficiency) is one of the projects by Elon Musk where an entire team of around 100 people helped design a similar product.
The project started but was never completed earlier but the move of the Department of Commerce shows that the level of the work has been escalated to a more formal level.
Blockchain publishing is already being developed in other federal departments on an experimental basis. The Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service have been experimenting on how they can make financial records visible on blockchain networks. The Department of Defense has also experimented with blockchain platforms to be able to track parts and supplies more efficiently.
Though Lutnick would not give an official timeline, he said that upon being up and running, the blockchain-based statistics would only be available to the Commerce Department. However, later, the stats will also be made available across US government agencies, providing a new channel to publish official data.
]]>

