In a move that’s sending ripples through both the tech and policy worlds, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced this week that the Department of Commerce will begin publishing key economic statistics—including the closely watched gross domestic product (GDP) data—on the blockchain. The announcement, made during a high-profile White House cabinet meeting on August 26, 2025, marks the first time a major U.S. federal agency has committed to using blockchain as an official data distribution platform for national statistics.
Speaking to President Donald Trump and other senior officials, Lutnick described the initiative as a leap toward greater transparency and security for government data. “The 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,” Lutnick declared, according to Cointelegraph. The rollout will begin with GDP figures, but Lutnick suggested that once the Commerce Department “irons out all of the details,” the approach could expand across other federal departments.
This pivot to blockchain comes at a time when the reliability of U.S. economic data has become a political flashpoint. President Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on official economic numbers throughout 2025. In April, he downplayed a 0.3% first-quarter GDP contraction as merely a “tariff-driven blip,” and in May, dismissed a Congressional Budget Office forecast of 1.8% growth as “biased,” instead predicting the economy could surge by as much as 9%. The tension escalated on August 1, when Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a disappointing July jobs report showed only 73,000 new positions and downward revisions to previous months. Trump accused McEntarfer of releasing “rigged” data, a move that alarmed economists and data experts alike.
The Commerce Department’s blockchain push is being framed as a response to these concerns, aiming to provide a tamper-proof and transparent method for disseminating vital statistics. As Cointelegraph explains, blockchain technology offers governments a suite of advantages: secure and auditable recordkeeping, digital identities that are hard to forge, and transparent information sharing across agencies. Yet, as experts caution, while blockchain can lock down how data is stored and distributed, it cannot guarantee the underlying accuracy of the data itself—a point that may become increasingly relevant as political debates over data integrity continue.
The United States isn’t the first to see promise in blockchain for government operations. Estonia, often cited as a digital pioneer, integrated Guardtime’s KSI blockchain into its e-Health system back in 2016, securing over a million patient records and later extending the technology to parts of its digital ID network. The European Commission, in partnership with the European Blockchain Partnership, launched the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) in 2018—a permissioned network built on Hyperledger Besu, with validator nodes hosted in France, Slovenia, and Denmark. EBSI aims to deliver cross-border public services that are both verifiable and trustworthy, and has become a model for decentralized government data systems.
Elsewhere, Singapore and Australia teamed up in 2021 to trial a blockchain platform for issuing and verifying cross-border trade documents, a move that slashed paperwork and costs for businesses. More recently, in 2024, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles digitized a staggering 42 million car titles on a permissioned Avalanche blockchain, a project designed to combat lien fraud and streamline vehicle transfers. Even tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, prior to his falling out with President Trump, floated the idea of running parts of the U.S. government on the blockchain—a vision that drew comparisons to Europe’s EBSI experiment.
While blockchain’s technical merits are clear, the political context in the U.S. remains fraught. Secretary Lutnick has not been shy about weighing in on other contentious policy debates. Just one day after his blockchain announcement, he called the existing H-1B visa program a “scam,” arguing in an interview with Fox News that it takes away jobs from American workers. “The current H-1B visa system is a scam that lets foreign workers fill American job opportunities. Hiring American workers should be the priority of all great American businesses,” Lutnick stated. He outlined plans to overhaul the H-1B system, replacing the current lottery allocation with a more wage-based approach, and hinted at reforms to the green card process as well.
Lutnick also spotlighted President Trump’s new ‘Gold Card’ proposal, which would grant U.S. residency only to wealthy foreigners willing to invest $5 million in the country. “That’s the gold card that’s coming. And that’s where we’re gonna start picking the best people to come into this country. It’s time for that to change,” Lutnick said, claiming that interest in the program is strong, with 250,000 people reportedly waiting in line and the potential to generate $1.25 trillion in revenue.
The Commerce Secretary’s hardline stance on work visas contrasts with President Trump’s own recent remarks. In January 2025, Trump defended the H-1B program, saying, “You got to get the best people...We have to have the quality people coming in... By doing that, we’re expanding businesses, and that takes care of everybody... But what I really do feel is that we have to let really competent people, great people, come into our country, and we do that through the H-1B.” During his first term, Trump’s administration imposed restrictions on H-1B visas, citing concerns over abuse and economic strain, and in 2016, he labeled the program a tool for companies to replace American workers with lower-paid foreign employees.
The debate over how best to balance economic openness with domestic job protection rages on, and the blockchain initiative is emerging as a symbol of both technological ambition and political calculation. Proponents argue that publishing economic data on a blockchain will make it harder for any administration to manipulate or conceal uncomfortable truths. Skeptics, however, warn that the technology’s transparency is only as good as the integrity of the data being entered—if the numbers are flawed or biased from the start, even the most secure ledger can’t fix that.
As the world watches the United States embark on this digital experiment, all eyes are on how the blockchain rollout will play out—and whether it will indeed usher in a new era of trust and accountability, or simply add another layer of complexity to already heated policy debates.
The coming months will reveal whether blockchain can truly transform the way Americans—and the world—see their government’s numbers, or if the old adage holds true: technology is only as trustworthy as the people who use it.
