U.S. Department of Commerce publishes official macroeconomic data onchain via Chainlink Data Feeds — first federal agency to do so
EV-067 · U.S. Department of Commerce / Bureau of Economic Analysis · 2025-08-28 · Evidence class: production · Confidence 98%
Howard Lutnick — U.S. Secretary of Commerce
In plain English
In plain terms: the U.S. government publishes its official economic figures — GDP, the main inflation measure the Federal Reserve watches, and a measure of consumer demand — directly onto public blockchains, where software can read them automatically. Chainlink is one of the two services carrying that data. Before this, a program that needed an official GDP number had to trust someone to type it in correctly. Now it can read the government's own published figure. It started in August 2025 and has run every quarter since.
Detail
Evidence class: PRODUCTION. The U.S. Department of Commerce publishes official Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics onchain, with Chainlink Data Feeds as one of two selected oracle networks. This was the first occasion on which a U.S. federal agency published economic data onchain. What is published — six data points, each indicator as both a level and a percentage change: • Real Gross Domestic Product • Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index — the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge • Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers — a measure of underlying domestic demand Feeds update monthly or quarterly, matching the BEA's existing release schedule. Distribution: Chainlink Data Feeds carry the data across ten ecosystems — Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Botanix, Ethereum, Linea, Mantle, Optimism, Sonic and ZKsync. Separately, and as its own mechanism, the Department publishes an official cryptographic hash of each BEA release to nine chains — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, TRON, Stellar, Avalanche, Arbitrum One, Polygon PoS and Optimism — embedded either as a memo or within a smart contract as each chain permits, with the transaction hash or contract address disclosed per chain. Coinbase, Gemini and Kraken facilitated publishing by supplying the cryptocurrency needed to pay transaction fees. Origin: Secretary Lutnick stated the intention at a televised White House cabinet meeting on 26 August 2025; the Department's formal announcement and the first publication followed on 28 August 2025, covering the Q2 2025 GDP release. Still operating: on 30 July 2026, eleven months after launch, the Q2 2026 figures were published through the same feeds — Real GDP 1.5%, PCE Price Index 3.7%. Continuous operation across four quarters is the substantive evidence here, more so than the launch announcement. Boundary of this entry: Chainlink is one of two oracle networks selected. Pyth Network was selected alongside it and distributes the same data. The hash-publication layer is the Department's own mechanism and is not a Chainlink product. Nothing here should be read as an exclusive arrangement.
Why it matters
The first instance of a U.S. federal agency publishing official economic statistics onchain, and one of the few entries in this database describing a government body using Chainlink infrastructure in production rather than in pilot. Its weight comes from duration as much as from the announcement: the feeds have carried four quarterly BEA releases since August 2025 and were still operating in July 2026. Two qualifications are recorded deliberately. Chainlink is one of two selected oracle networks, not the sole provider, and the Department's cryptographic hash publication is a separate mechanism of its own rather than a Chainlink service. Sources describing this as a Chainlink-exclusive arrangement are inaccurate.
Verified — U.S. Department of Commerce official announcement (published with per-chain transaction hashes and contract addresses) and Chainlink's own blog post of 28 Aug 2025; independently reported by Ledger Insights, CoinDesk, Finextra, Decrypt and Global Government Forum
Topics: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Government, United States, Market Data, Data Feeds, Macroeconomic Data, Public Sector, GDP, Inflation
