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Economy: The IMF Recognizes Bitcoin as a Financial Asset

Bitcoin and the IMF. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international institution headquartered in Washington D.C. Its main role is to promote international monetary cooperation, ensure global financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment levels and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. As part of its missions, the IMF has just published a new version of its accounting manual, which now includes… cryptocurrencies!

Key points of this article:

The IMF has published a new version of its accounting manual, including cryptocurrencies, recognizing their rapid growth as a key change in the global economy.

Cryptocurrencies are now considered financial assets by the IMF, categorized as “crypto-assets,” with a recommendation to implement new accounting standards by 2029-2030.

The IMF recognizes the “rapid growth of crypto-assets”

On March 20, 2025, the IMF announced the publication of the 7th edition of its Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM7).

This document serves as a guide for IMF member countries to prepare internationally comparable statistics and produce high-quality data reflecting economic realities.

And indeed, among these economic realities, the IMF can no longer ignore the rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In fact, the IMF's press release specifically mentions the “rapid growth of crypto-assets” as one of the “key changes in the global economy” that necessitated this update of the BPM7: