The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised its balance of payment standards to display the growing impact of digital assets.
According to the newly released manual of payments, seventh edition (BPM7), cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) are now classified as non-produced non-finance assets, while certain tokens are treated at equity.
The updated manual, published on March 20, marks the first time that the IMF has integrated detailed guidelines for digital assets in its global statistical standards.
Crypto without liabilities
The Framework divides digital assets into fungi and non -frankly tokens, with further distinctions based on whether they have corresponding liability.
Bitcoin and similar tokens without liabilities are categorized as capital assets, while stablecoins, which are supported by obligations, are treated as financial instruments.
According to the IMF:
“Crypto-assets without a counterpart liability that is designed to act as an exchange medium (eg bitcoin) are treated as non-produced non-financial assets and individually included on the capital account.”
In practice, this means cross-border crypto flows in which assets such as Bitcoin are involved are laid down in capital accounts such as acquisitions or removals of non-produced assets.
In the meantime, tokens with a protocol or platform-such as Ethereum or Solana (SOL)-are classified as stock-like companies under the financial account if their owner lives in a country other than the founder.
For example, if a British investor loves Solana tokens of the US, the function would be registered as ‘Crypto -Activa shares’, parallel with traditional foreign stock investments.
The IMF notes that such assets, despite the dependence on cryptography, are considered comparable to standard equity in terms of property rights.
Place rewards and validation services
In a nod to the complexity of deploying and yielding crypto activities, the IMF also stated that making rewards that are earned with retaining these tokens can resemble dividends in equity and must be registered under the occurrence of the current account, depending on the size and purpose of the posture.
The manual introduces a conceptual shift for countries that compile macro -economic statistics, with the aim of improving visibility in the economic impact of digital assets and related services.
Transactions with the validation of crypto activations – such as mining or deportation – should be treated as the production of services, so that they are added to the export and import of computer services.
The BPM7 manual has been developed through worldwide consultation with more than 160 countries and is expected to lead to official statistics in the coming years.
Although the implementation will vary per jurisdiction, the movement of the IMF marks an important step to recognize the macro -economic relevance of digital assets in a standardized and comparable format worldwide.
