Howard Lutnick said the U.S. will publish GDP data on blockchain to boost transparency across government

According to a statement made by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the Department of Commerce will begin publishing GDP figures directly on a blockchain network.

Howard, who stepped down from Cantor Fitzgerald to take over the Commerce Department under Trump, said:

“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 out GDP on the blockchain so people can use the blockchain for data distribution.”

Howard confirmed that the initiative is still being finalized. “We’re just ironing out all the details so we can do it,” he said. He added that the blockchain-published data would be shared across all government departments, ensuring that real-time economic data is available not just to federal agencies but also to the public.

Lutnick teams up with David Sacks and backs Bitcoin

Howard said the plan was made possible through collaboration with David Sacks, the White House’s top adviser on crypto and artificial intelligence. He credited Sacks for helping deliver Trump’s Bitcoin strategic reserve, which was unveiled earlier in the year.

The Department’s blockchain push is seen as part of a broader pro-crypto policy overhaul under Trump’s second term.

Howard has long been vocal about Bitcoin and stablecoins. He has publicly compared Bitcoin to gold and has repeatedly defended Tether’s reserves, even brushing off illicit-financing concerns during his Senate confirmation hearing.

He told Bitcoin Magazine, “Once you embrace the concept of commodity, you’ll see how beautiful that is,” arguing that Bitcoin must be treated as a commodity to fit within federal regulatory frameworks.

During the same cabinet briefing, Howard also spoke about interest rates and the Federal Reserve. “Stock market is at their highs virtually every day. Bond market is steady and it should be lower. We all agree interest rates are lower,” he said.

“I mean, if the Federal Reserve actually cared about the United States of America, they’d understand that they could cut interest rates, cost the United States of American taxpayer less money. Remember, each 1% of interest rate cut is worth $360 billion a year to the American taxpayers over time.”

Brandon Lutnick leads $4 billion bitcoin purchase through Cantor shell

While Howard focuses on economic and blockchain policies, his son Brandon Lutnick is closing a $4 billion bitcoin acquisition deal using a Cantor Fitzgerald-backed SPAC called Cantor Equity Partners 1. That vehicle raised $200 million in an IPO back in January and is now in late-stage discussions with Adam Back, founder of Blockstream Capital, to buy over $3 billion in bitcoin.

The structure of the deal will see Back contribute 30,000 bitcoin, valued at over $3 billion, to the SPAC in exchange for equity in what will be renamed BSTR Holdings. The vehicle plans to raise another $800 million in outside capital to boost bitcoin holdings beyond $4 billion.

That follows an earlier $3.6 billion crypto deal Brandon completed with SoftBank and Tether in April. Both deals reflect Cantor’s strategy of using blank-check companies to scale up bitcoin exposure during Trump’s deregulatory push.

Cantor’s crypto arms, BSTR Holdings and Twenty One Capital, are now expected to make combined purchases approaching $10 billion by year-end. Brandon was named chair of Cantor Fitzgerald in February, right after Howard assumed his Cabinet post. The family handover became official in May.

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