Bitcoin Reclassified by IMF

Bitcoin Reclassified by the IMF: Echoes of Keynesian Monetary Alchemy?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM7), has reclassified Bitcoin as a “non-produced, non-financial asset.” These are assets that exist without being the product of production activities and are not associated with financial contracts. While they can be owned, they do not typically generate income nor serve as instruments for financial transactions. Gold and land are quintessential examples.

This move provides governments and corporations with clearer accounting guidance for holding Bitcoin. However, despite Bitcoin’s frequent branding as “digital gold,” key accounting distinctions remain between the two.

Gold, for instance, is recognised in national balance sheets as a monetary asset—an official reserve instrument held by central banks to support foreign exchange reserves and monetary operations. It is internationally accepted, highly liquid, and treated as a store of unquestioned value.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, lacks such legal and policy recognition. While governments may hold Bitcoin as a form of property or asset, it is not yet deemed a formal tool for monetary stabilisation or market intervention. When held by a public institution, Bitcoin must be recorded as an “other non-financial asset” in the national accounts, a status still worlds apart from gold as an official reserve.

Nevertheless, the IMF’s reclassification provides a gateway—if not a greenlight—for governments like that of the United States under Donald Trump to explore Bitcoin acquisition in a more structured way.

On 6 March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order directing Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to devise a mechanism by which the US government could acquire Bitcoin without drawing on tax revenues.

If this directive is interpreted alongside the IMF's classification, an intriguing scenario begins to emerge.

The United States could begin by revaluing the 8,133 tonnes of gold held in places like Fort Knox. With current market prices hovering around $3,000 per ounce and the official book value still languishing at $42, this would yield an unrealised gain of approximately $780 billion. However, these paper gains cannot be folded into the Treasury’s general account without Congressional approval.

To bypass this, the government could tap into off-budget mechanisms such as the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), enabling the Trump administration to pursue Bitcoin acquisitions unilaterally.

The key would be to issue Special Purpose Bonds (SPBs) backed by the revaluation surplus of gold.

Should this scenario materialise, its implications would be profound.

In essence, the United States would be leveraging its physical gold reserves to create a digital gold stockpile, expanding its monetary arsenal without officially departing from orthodox frameworks.

This echoes a forgotten episode of monetary innovation—the post-WWI proposal of John Maynard Keynes.

After Churchill led Britain back onto the gold standard, Keynes, despite his earlier opposition, proposed a more flexible system—a modified gold standard.

Under his plan, the UK government would issue gold-backed bonds, which would in turn serve as collateral for the issuance of an International Gold Note—a quasi-global currency.

Though the volume of these bonds could theoretically exceed actual gold holdings, thus mirroring the elasticity of modern fiat systems, it allowed Keynes to cloak a credit-based system in the legitimacy of gold. In short, it was a rhetorical sleight of hand—a brilliant manoeuvre designed to placate the political class while planting the seeds of monetary modernity.