by Marianella Vanci March 22, 2025 Reading time: 4 minutes
Crypto assets like bitcoin are "key stores of wealth" in the digital economy, says the IMF.
The IMF adjusts statistics to measure digital transactions and finance, with bitcoin on the radar.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), guardian of the old global financial order, has just opened a crack to the future by introducing bitcoin (BTC) into its global accounts. It is evident that the international organization is now yielding ground and recognizing that the pioneering digital currency, along with other digital assets, is breaking into the statistics that measure the economy of the 21st century.
Thus, in a move that could be interpreted as a tacit acknowledgment of digital assets, the IMF has integrated bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into its new global standards for macroeconomic statistics, as revealed in Chapter 16 of the Balance of Payments Manual 7 (BPM7), in its preliminary version. This document, which details how to measure digitalization in the global economy, recognizes the transformative impact of digital assets, marking a milestone in the visibility of technologies such as that created by Satoshi Nakamoto in national and international accounts.
Digitalization, defined by the IMF as the massive integration of digital technology into goods, services, and economic activities, has led to products such as crypto assets, which the report describes as "assets that exist only in digital form" and that "have taken on important roles as stores of wealth or inputs in production." Bitcoin fits perfectly into this category, standing out as an implicit example of this new economic reality.
The report details how digital assets, along with data, software, and cloud services, are redefining production, consumption, finance, and cross-border trade. "The profound influence of digitalization demands greater visibility of these activities in macroeconomic accounts," the text notes, proposing specific guidelines to measure transactions, products, and digital assets. Among them, crypto assets are classified with and without corresponding liabilities —Bitcoin belongs to the latter group— and they are recognized a place in the financial system alongside new means of payment and digital platforms.
A quiet victory for bitcoiners
The IMF text can be interpreted as an implicit recognition of bitcoin by including it as part of the digital assets in the landscape of digitalization that transforms the economy. It acknowledges its existence, its impact on finance, and its relevance as a digital asset, aligning with the bitcoiner narrative that it is a disruptive force that cannot be ignored.
However, the organization neither praises nor criticizes the pioneering digital currency, but rather its approach is technical and statistical, seeking to measure and classify digital phenomena without issuing value judgments. In that sense, it should be understood that there is no recognition in the sense of support or legitimization. This means that the IMF does not provide ideological backing or validation of its superiority over other monetary systems....