- International Monetary Fund (IMF) included Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in its BPM7.
- IMF treats cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as non-produced non-financial assets.
International Monetary Fun joined the growing list of global organizations that recognize cryptocurrencies. What started as an experiment in 2009 has now grown into a trillion-dollar industry. It reached such as magnitude that is hard to ignore by world leaders and government agencies. Trump’s pro-crypto stance further fueled the growth and adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Yesterday, the Trump administration announced its plans to bring USAID onto blockchain to increase security, transparency, and accountability. Trump even signed an executive order to establish a crypto token reserve. Today is the new day and another global organization started including cryptocurrencies in its reports.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published the seventh edition of its Balance of Payments Manual (BPM7). The framework classified cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as non-produced nonfinancial assets. Other crypto tokens are treated as equity holdings. As per IMF,
“Crypto assets without a counterpart liability designed to act as a medium of exchange (e.g., Bitcoin) are treated as non-produced non-financial assets and recorded separately in the capital account.”
IMF Classifies Cryptocurrencies Treating Staking Rewards as Equity Dividends
This marks the first time IMF made an elaborative report on the recognition and classification of cryptocurrencies. IMF classified digital assets into fungible and non-fungible assets and then further classified fungible tokens based on their corresponding liability.
While cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin with no corresponding liability are capital assets, other tokens such as stablecoins backed by liabilities are classified as financial instruments. Crypto tokens that have an underlying protocol or platform such as Ether and Solana are more like equity holdings.
When traders stake their digital assets and earn staking rewards, the IMF considers them similar to equity dividends. Overall, the IMF manual acts as a guide for all the global countries that are exploring ways to classify digital assets and bring clear regulations.
The recognition of digital assets by the IMF brings a huge shift to the crypto industry. For all the governments that are adamant about recognizing or regulating digital assets, this acts as a guiding step forward.
Highlighted Crypto News Today:
Cardano (ADA) Faces Price Pressure, But Network Activity Remains Strong
