US Commerce to publish GDP information on blockchain, says Lutnick

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick mentioned the Division of Commerce will start publishing financial statistics, together with gross home product (GDP) information, on the blockchain.

Lutnick made the announcement throughout a White Home cupboard assembly on Tuesday, describing the hassle as a transfer to broaden blockchain-based information distribution throughout authorities companies. Talking to US President Donald Trump and different authorities officers, he mentioned:

“The Division of Commerce goes to begin issuing its statistics on the blockchain, as a result of you’re the crypto president, and we’re going to put our GDP on the blockchain so individuals can use it for information and distribution.”

Lutnick mentioned the initiative will start with GDP figures and will broaden throughout federal departments after the Commerce Division finishes “ironing out the entire particulars” for the implementation.

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World adoption reveals blockchain’s potential for governments

Different governments have already adopted the expertise in public administration.

In 2016, Estonia’s authorities built-in Guardtime’s KSI blockchain into its e-Well being system to safe over one million affected person data. The identical infrastructure now underpins components of its digital ID community, making the Baltic nation an early pioneer.

In 2018, the European Fee and the European Blockchain Partnership launched the European Blockchain Companies Infrastructure (EBSI), a permissioned community constructed on Hyperledger Besu. Member states resembling France, Slovenia and Denmark host validator nodes, giving it a decentralized construction designed to ship cross-border public providers which are verifiable and reliable.

In 2021, Singapore and Australia trialed a blockchain system to difficulty and confirm cross-border commerce paperwork, lowering paperwork and slicing prices. And in 2024, California’s Division of Motor Automobiles digitized 42 million automobile titles on a permissioned Avalanche blockchain to curb lien fraud and streamline car transfers.

Earlier than his fallout with US President Donald Trump, Elon Musk floated the concept of working components of the US authorities on the blockchain, a proposal that drew comparisons to Europe’s EBSI challenge.

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Blockchain can document information, however can’t management its accuracy

The plan comes as Trump has repeatedly questioned the reliability of US financial information. 

In April, he downplayed a 0.3% first-quarter GDP contraction as a tariff-driven blip, and in Could, he dismissed a Congressional Finances Workplace forecast of 1.8% progress as biased whereas predicting the economic system may broaden by as a lot as 9%.

On Aug. 1, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a July jobs report confirmed solely 73,000 new positions and sharp downward revisions to earlier months, accusing her of releasing “rigged” information and sparking alarm amongst economists.

As Cointelegraph has reported, blockchain provides governments benefits for dealing with information, from tamper-proof recordkeeping and safe digital identities to clear data sharing and auditable transactions. 

Nonetheless, whereas the expertise can safe how information is saved and shared, it doesn’t deal with the accuracy of the information itself.