PANews reported on August 28th that, according to Bloomberg, the US government began publishing gross domestic product (GDP) data on a public blockchain on Thursday, marking the Trump administration's latest support for the cryptocurrency industry. According to Commerce Department officials, this move will open up an alternative avenue for publishing economic data—but not replace existing ones. The US government's initiative will initially cover nine blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The plan is to place so-called cryptographic hashes of the data on these blockchains.

Commerce Department officials said the Trump administration intends to expand the program's scope in the future. They said the blockchain initiative is unrelated to the dismissal of the Bureau of Labor Statistics director. Officials said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was the driving force behind the push to publish the data on a blockchain. Earlier this year, Lutnick also said he planned to change the way GDP data is reported to remove the influence of government spending. GDP data is released by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.