The International Monetary Fund has finally introduced some order into how digital assets are classified in global statistics. Bitcoin and similar tokens without liabilities? They are capital assets. Stablecoins backed by liabilities? Financial instruments. Cross-border cryptocurrency flows? They go into capital accounts as acquisitions or sales of non-derivative assets.
Then there are protocol and platform tokens – Ethereum, Solana – potentially seen as equity-like assets if the holder is from a different country than the issuer. A neat framework, or maybe not.
That last part about utility tokens got people talking. If the IMF subtly calls them securities, what does that mean for everything that falls under that vague category? Bitcoin remains a medium of exchange, but what about XRP? The discussion escalated fast.
XRP security?
David Schwartz, Ripple’s CTO, jumped in with a take of his own. The definition of utility tokens, per the IMF, says they come with a financial claim against an identifiable counterparty for goods or services.
But Schwartz questioned what major token actually fits that description, if any at all.
Related
Inevitably, the XRP debate flared up. Could this mean XRP is about to be cemented as a security? Some thought so, but Schwartz was not convinced. If XRP is a utility token just because it can pay future transaction fees, then Bitcoin and Ethereum are, too. The logic did not add up for him.
RLUSD too?
Then, the conversation got into stablecoins. Maybe they are the closest thing to what the IMF is describing. But even that seemed off. Wouldn’t that make stablecoins “utility tokens?”
If so, is the IMF’s definition even correct? Financial activity always has some element of expectation – of value, of return. Drawing hard lines does not make it any simpler.
Related
Amid all of this, Ripple’s own move into stablecoins with RLUSD is hard to ignore. The stablecoin market is projected to explode past $2.8 trillion, and Ripple is positioning itself accordingly.
But what does that mean for XRP? That is the question hanging in the air, and no framework can answer it just yet.
