The United States announces the publication of its economic data, starting with the GDP, directly on the blockchain to ensure transparency and accessibility.
This initiative is part of a global movement of institutional adoption, already experienced by Estonia, the EU, California, or Singapore, but takes on unprecedented significance with the world’s leading power.
The goal is also political: to address controversies surrounding the reliability of figures and strengthen market confidence, even though the blockchain does not guarantee the accuracy of the data upstream.
Howard Lutnick Proposes Recording Country’s Data on Blockchain
The US government is poised to take an unprecedented step: publishing its economic statistics directly on the blockchain. Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, confirmed that the first data concerned will be those of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the beating heart of the American economy. The announcement, made during a cabinet meeting at the White House in the presence of Donald Trump, marks a symbolic and technical turning point for the world’s leading power.
Lutnick addressed the world, but especially Trump, presenting the measure as a radical modernization of channels for disseminating public data. The initiative could then expand to other federal agencies once the technical details are stabilized.
A Global Movement of Institutional Adoption
The United States is not the first to experiment with blockchain in public services, but their economic weight changes the scale. For nearly a decade, several states have been exploring this path. Estonia was a pioneer as early as 2016 by integrating Guardtime’s technology into its healthcare system, protecting over a million medical records. This infrastructure now also serves to strengthen its digital identity network.
In Europe, in 2018, the Commission launched the EBSI (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure), a distributed register based on Hyperledger Besu. With nodes validated by several member countries, including France and Denmark, the goal is clear: to offer verifiable and inviolable cross-border public services. Asia is not far behind: Singapore and Australia tested a blockchain in 2021 to streamline international trade, drastically reducing administrative costs.
In the United States, California has already digitized over 40 million vehicle titles on Avalanche to reduce fraud and speed up vehicle transfers. The federal announcement thus gives a national dimension to what was previously only local experimentation.
A Response to Controversies about the Reliability of Figures
Behind the technological gesture also lies a political dimension. Donald Trump has been criticizing American statistical institutions for months. In the spring, he dismissed a 0.3% decline in GDP as a simple effect of tariffs, before accusing the Congressional Budget Office of ‘bias’ in its growth forecasts. In early August, he went further by dismissing the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a report on employment deemed ‘rigged’.
In this explosive context, the use of the blockchain serves as an argument for transparency: once published, the data would be immutable and accessible to all, without the possibility of manipulation afterward. A promise that targets both markets and public opinion.
Limits and Possible Impacts on Markets
One essential nuance remains: the blockchain guarantees the integrity of storage and dissemination, not the veracity of the data upstream. In other words, if the figures transmitted by the agencies are disputed, registering them on a distributed ledger does not eliminate suspicions of bias.
For financial markets and crypto investors, this decision can nonetheless have a catalytic effect. It positions the blockchain as a state tool, providing credibility to its use far beyond decentralized finance. In an environment where trust in economic statistics directly influences rates, bonds, and even Bitcoin as a safe haven, this American turn could reshape the landscape.
Towards a New Standard of Trust?
The idea of an ‘on-chain GDP’ is not just a political communication tactic. If successfully implemented, it could set a global precedent: an open register, consultable in real-time, serving as the official reference for markets, economists, and citizens. In a world where the battle for economic information rages, inscribing data in the digital bedrock of the blockchain could well become the new norm.
