US Commerce Department to Put GDP Data on Blockchain

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🪙 US wants your GDP stats on the blockchain

• 🤑 Trump Media & Crypto.com stack $6.4B CRO treasury

• 🎲 Trump Jr. bets on Polymarket’s future

• 🚪 Logging in with Google? MetaMask makes it possible

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Xapo Bank, Ledn and Re. If you enjoy Unchained Daily, show our sponsors some love!

Access up to $1M without selling your Bitcoin

Instant liquidity. No selling. No fees. No early penalties. Backed by your BTC.

How do you access capital when all your wealth is tied up in Bitcoin? LEDN solves this with Bitcoin-backed loans - you get the liquidity you need while keeping your Bitcoin position intact.

No selling, no taxable events, just capital when you need it.

Trusted since 2018 with 1,000+ verified reviews.

U.S. Commerce Department Will Put GDP Data on Blockchain

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the government department plans to publish official economic data, starting with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, on the blockchain.

Lutnick shared his plans with President Donald Trump in a Tuesday White House cabinet meeting, saying “cause you [Trump] are the crypto president, and we are going to put the GDP on the blockchain so people can use the blockchain for data distribution.”

The Commerce Secretary also noted that the intention was to expand blockchain-based data infrastructure across federal agencies, with details of implementation still being finalized.

Several governments across the world are already exploring blockchain technology for government and public services. Estonia secures health records, land registries, digital identity, and government services, with 99% digital ID coverage of citizens.

The United Arab Emirates launched the Emirates Blockchain Strategy in 2018, aiming to transform 50% of government transactions onto blockchain to improve efficiency and reduce paperwork.

Trump Media, Crypto.com Plan $6.4 Billion CRO Treasury

Trump Media & Technology Group, backed by President Donald Trump, is partnering with Crypto.com to establish a $6.4 billion CRO token treasury. CRO is the native token of the Cronos blockchain, developed by Crypto.com. 

The new venture, named Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, will be funded primarily through a $5 billion equity line of credit from the blank-check company Yorkville, alongside cash and token holdings.

The other sources of funding include $1 billion worth of CRO tokens, $200 million in cash, and $220 million in warrants.

Trump Media plans to acquire $105 million in CRO tokens, while Crypto.com will purchase $50 million worth of Trump Media equity shares. Both token and equity transactions are subject to a lock-up period.

The new entity will list on the Nasdaq under the new ticker MCGA and effectively become one of the largest digital asset treasuries by market cap ratio ever established.

“Now imagine how great that’d be for CRO had you not made the god awful decision to remint 70 billion tokens you already burned,” said pseudonymous crypto trader JamezSpeaks.eth on X.

Earlier this year, Crypto.com pushed through a controversial vote to remint 70 billion CRO tokens that were taken out of circulation back in 2021.

“While all of this is great, currently, what’s to protect from a total sell off once the presidency ends? Or another President comes in and undoes anything Trump has done for crypto?” added JamezSpeaks.eth.

Polymarket Adds Trump Jr. to Advisory Board

Donald Trump Jr. has joined the advisory board of Polymarket, a prediction market platform, following a strategic investment in the platform by 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm where Trump Jr. is a partner.

The investment supports Polymarket's efforts to make a regulated return to the US market after previously being blocked due to a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) action in 2022.

To aid its US comeback, Polymarket acquired CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $122 million in July.

Trump Jr. also advises rival U.S. prediction market Kalshi, which recently hired 23-year-old crypto influencer John Wang to head crypto operations.

MetaMask Eliminates Seed Phrase Requirement With Social Login

Popular Web3 wallet MetaMask has launched a new social login feature that allows users to create, back up, and restore crypto wallets using Google or Apple accounts.

The update simplifies wallet setup by eliminating the need for users to manually handle the traditional 12-word secret recovery phrase.

Instead, users can authenticate via their social login and set a unique password, which together unlock the recovery phrase stored securely on the local device.

“Social login uses a cryptographic primitive called ‘Threshold Oblivious Pseudorandom Function’ (TOPRF) alongside a distributed key management protocol to ensure that you remain in custody of your tokens, all while providing a high level of protection against attacks and failures,” explained MetaMask engineer Francesco Andreoli.

Earn up to 16% APY*

• 🏛️ With Commissioner Kristin Johnson’s September 3 departure, the CFTC now faces its fourth exit this year, leaving Acting Chair Caroline Pham as the lone commissioner while Congress debates giving the understaffed agency sweeping new crypto powers.

• 🔒 A 114-member coalition including Coinbase, a16z, and Solana Labs told the Senate Banking Committee they will oppose its market structure bill unless it exempts open-source developers from liability, citing the Tornado Cash case as proof code writers risk prison.

• 🔗 Bitwise filed the first U.S. ETF for Chainlink, naming Coinbase as custodian and offering in-kind redemptions in LINK, which jumped 4% on the news as investors eye growing momentum for altcoin ETFs under Trump’s pro-crypto stance.

• 📊 Canary Capital filed with the SEC to launch an ETF tracking Trump-themed memecoin $TRUMP, joining other firms trying to bring political tokens into mainstream brokerage accounts under friendlier U.S. rules.

• ☁️ Google Cloud confirmed its private blockchain “Universal Ledger” is already in testnet with CME pilots, designed to let banks run Python-based smart contracts for payments and asset tokenization.

• 📝 Numerai, the San Francisco AI-driven hedge fund that returned 25% last year, grew its assets from $60 million to $450 million in three years and just locked in a $500 million allocation from JPMorgan, triggering a 33% spike in its Numeraire token.

• 🤖 YZi Labs invested in USD.AI, a DeFi protocol that finances AI infrastructure with hardware-backed loans, as the startup surpassed $62 million locked and pitched its stablecoin as a solution to trillions in unmet compute funding needs.

• 🏥 Healthcare firm KindlyMD, fresh off a merger with Nakamoto Holdings, announced a $5 billion stock sale to fund more Bitcoin buys after already spending $679 million on 5,744 BTC, but its shares tumbled 12% as investors balked at dilution.

• 📈 SharpLink boosted its Ethereum treasury to 797,704 ETH worth $3.6 billion after a $252 million purchase last week, while also racking up over $8 million in staking rewards since June.

1. Stablewatch: Stablecoin Infrastructure Wars

2. Auditless Research: Circle's New Arc: Is ETH Just an Asset for Institutions?

3. Bitwise: Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions