The native token of the Chainlink network, LINK, surged more than 5% after the network announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce to bring official government economic data onchain, marking a first-of-its-kind effort to bridge public data infrastructure with blockchain applications.

Pyth Network was also selected alongside Chainlink, sending its native token, PYTH, up nearly 50% after the announcement.

Key macroeconomic statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis — such as Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, and Real Final Sales to Private Domestic Purchasers — are now accessible onchain through Chainlink Data Feeds, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday. Six data points in total are being published, including both absolute levels and annualized percentage changes.

The data is being made available across ten blockchain networks, including Ethereum (ETH), Avalanche (AVAX) and Optimism (OP). Chainlink says the feeds will update monthly or quarterly, mirroring the release schedules of their traditional counterparts.

Meanwhile, Pyth said it will initially offer quarterly GDP data releases going back five years, with expectations to expand the initiative to other economic datasets.

Historic move

For example, lending protocols could adjust interest rates based on GDP trends, while prediction markets might incorporate the PCE Index to crowdsource inflation forecasts.

"Bringing U.S. government data onchain unlocks innovative use cases for blockchain markets, such as automated trading strategies, increased composability of tokenized assets, the issuance of new types of digital assets, real-time prediction markets for crowdsourced intelligence, transparent dashboards powered by immutable data, and DeFi ( DEFT ) protocol risk management based on macroeconomic factors," Chainlink's blog post said.

Bringing economic data sets onto the blockchain also brings efficiency and transparency to data published by the government.

"The integrity of economic data is essential to global markets, and bringing this data onchain opens up new frontiers for transparency, accessibility, and composability across DeFi ( DEFT ), enterprise use cases, and public accountability," Pyth said in its statement.

Crypto ( CRCW ) in Washington

Chainlink had held several meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to help clarify how blockchain infrastructure fits within existing broker-dealer and transfer agent rules, as well as other lawmakers to help establish the GENIUS Act, the company said.

By bringing federal economic indicators onchain, Chainlink is attempting to normalize blockchain as a destination for mission-critical public data — offering transparency and composability that traditional systems don’t easily support, it said.

The move highlights the U.S. government's push to adopt blockchain technology for public data infrastructure. On Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Department of Commerce plans to begin publishing economic statistics — including GDP figures — onchain as part of an effort to expand blockchain-based data distribution across federal agencies.

Lutnick said the initiative aims to modernize how official data is shared by making it more transparent and tamper-proof, without disclosing how the government is planning to do so.

He said the Department hopes to set a precedent for other agencies to follow by moving key indicators like GDP to the blockchain, laying the groundwork for a more secure and interoperable system for releasing government data.

"Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce’s visionary stance on data innovation and willingness to embrace blockchain technology is positioning the U.S. as a world leader in finance. But this is just the first step in a long and high-yielding endeavor to rebuild the data infrastructure of the United States of America," Pyth said in its statement on Thursday.

Read more: Chainlink's LINK Gains on Joining SEC Crypto Task Force's Tokenization Initiative

UPDATE (Aug 28, 15:00 UTC): Updates the headline and story throuhgout to add more information about the government wanting to use blockchain for public data infrastructure. Also adds that Pyth Network was selected alongside Chainlink.