this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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119
U.S. Government Starts Pushing Economic Data Onto Blockchains as 'Proof of Concept' (www.coindesk.com)
submitted 3 days ago by technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The U.S. Department of Commerce said it issued its gross domestic product data via nine blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto-world pathways.

archive: https://archive.ph/RDgRJ

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[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I like how the article doesn’t even attempt to communicate a potential benefit to doing this or any rationale for why this is useful or good at all. Of course, the real rationale is that it allows the administration to hand wave about being “innovative” without backing that assertion with any substance. It also allows the administration to apply some of the supposed legitimacy of the US government to this wholly pointless, fraud riddled joke of a technology. JFC, this is such a clown of a nation.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you didn't know anything else about bitcoin you'd know its a scam just from Trump getting involved.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago

Of course. He has no use for normal business practices. If it can't be gamed, it's no fun.

[–] towerful@programming.dev 44 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Yay, decentralised and immutable!

Data integrity at source: If the BEA’s initial data is wrong (as sometimes happens with revisions), blockchain only makes the error permanent until corrected with new updates

Oh, so... Like previously just publishing a pdf on a website, then.
I guess it means they can't hide revisions. Which is what archive.org (and the us government equivalent that archives government sites) provided when the government just published the pdf.

At least it's decentralised!

Over-reliance on oracles: Chainlink and Pyth are powerful, but their centrality creates new concentration risks. If they malfunction or face attacks, critical data feeds could be disrupted.

Gotcha, still has centralised services.

Quotes taken from https://www.ccn.com/education/crypto/gdp-on-blockchain-us-government-data-bitcoin-ethereum-other-networks/ which seems to have the best technical info I could find

Still not much information. I'm presuming an "oracle" is something that gives you a hash of the "immutable" data, so you only have to pay to get that hash recorded on a blockchain instead of however many kB of PDF.

[–] thesmokingman@programming.dev 6 points 2 days ago

Don’t forget the ability of major actors to rewrite history, making these blockchains incredibly centralized and absolutely mutable. If someone with enough clout decides to roll something back, it happens.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But wouldn't the PDF still need to be available in order for this to be useful?

[–] towerful@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yes. I was laying on the sarcasm heavily.
I presume that's what these oracle services provide.
Essentially hosts the us governments GDP NFT, so you can right click and download it just like every NFT crypto bro hates you doing.
Whether its actually the US Government hosting the file, or these oracle services hosting it... It doesn't matter.

Why not just host the files on a government website with appropriate file hashes (so users can verify the file is still the same), let the internet archive and the national archives take a snapshots of the files and pages and hashes etc... ? That's a well regarded site archival system, and the governmental archival system. Has redundancy, pedigree and public acceptance.
Fuck it, publish just the hash on some block chains so the "fingerprint" of the report is immutable. But call it what it is.

The report isn't "published on the Blockchain".
It is linked from some blockchains.
There is still a file hosted by some servers.
You can't download your favourite blockchain, take it to the top of Mount Rushmore with no internet and inspect the US GDP figures without first downloading the file linked in the block chain.

Blockchain oracles are entities that connect blockchains to external systems, allowing smart contracts to execute depending on real-world inputs and outputs. Oracles give the Web 3.0 ecosystem a method to connect to existing legacy systems, data sources and advanced calculations.

https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/what-is-a-blockchain-oracle-and-how-does-it-work

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Who is getting the contract for this waste of money?

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 0 points 2 days ago

Whoever paid the biggest bribe.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What’s the use case here? Is there one?

[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 7 points 2 days ago

Bribing people with technologies that do nothing. Since cost and worth aren't really quantifiable with some of these technologies, all of these actions might as well be seen as just shallow bribes and favors to those in power.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

Channeling money to the crypto bros who gave dark money to Trump.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 days ago

proof of concept of the dumbest fucking idea

[–] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 3 days ago

So we got rid of most of the useful government data and now we're paying gas fees to billionaires to store the rest. Great.

[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

the grift comes full circle

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

What a strange idea.

[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

How about we do this for voting?

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

How about we only use blockchain for the use cases where it's an optimal solution.

If and when there are such use cases.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No. Keep tech away from voting. Software cannot be trusted.

You can't tell if the button you push is the thing being counted. You don't know if the version of the code on the machine is the one that was audited.

Paper. Ballots. Only

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works -2 points 2 days ago

Blockchain? Like getting escorted by fascist soldiers on to the Chopping Block while in Chains? That Blockchain?