IMF Recommends Including Bitcoin in National GDP Calculations

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a Washington DC-based financial institution under the United Nations, published an article on Thursday recommending what it calls “an updated System of National Accounts” (SNA), that measures and incorporates the value of emerging technologies, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, in the calculation of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). The SNA, whose roots go back as far as 1947, provides accounting frameworks to help countries evaluate their economies, and this latest update now integrates activities that involve artificial intelligence, digital services, and crypto assets such as bitcoin ( BTC). “Statisticians have found a way to classify certain crypto assets as ‘non-produced nonfinancial assets,’ which are reflected in national wealth,” the article explains. “Bitcoin uses as much electricity as Argentina…Yet because it doesn’t involve the creation of goods or services in the traditional sense, it isn’t counted in gross domestic product.”