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.
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.
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The data is being made available across ten blockchain networks, including Ethereum ETH$4,647.03, Avalanche AVAX$24.73 and Optimism OP$0.7203. Chainlink says the feeds will update monthly or quarterly, mirroring the release schedules of their traditional counterparts.
The initiative opens up new possibilities for developers building in DeFi and beyond. 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 protocol risk management based on macroeconomic factors,” the blog post said.
Chainlink has deepened its engagement with U.S. policymakers this year, including 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.
Read more: Chainlink’s LINK Gains on Joining SEC Crypto Task Force’s Tokenization Initiative