Audit and verifiability of transactions with digital financial assets in companies: application of cryptographic methods and continuous monitoring

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of digital financial assets heightens companies’ need for verifiable transparency of operations and timely control, while a gap persists in corporate practice between the use of digital tools and audit maturity, which is especially evident among enterprises of the agro-industrial complex. The aim of the study is to substantiate an approach to auditing and the provability of transactions with digital assets through a combination of cryptographic methods and continuous monitoring aimed at reducing financial and operational risks. The methodological basis includes a comparative analysis of traditional and streaming control procedures, statistical assessment of inspection frequency, anomaly-detection latency, and transaction coverage, as well as qualitative risk appraisal considering the applicability of distributed ledgers, digital signatures, multisignatures, and confidential zero-knowledge proofs. The results have been obtained confirming the advantage of continuous auditing of key metrics, the proportion of operations being audited increases to almost complete coverage, which is accompanied by more frequent detection of violations as a result of better observability of processes. It is established that blockchain provides high traceability and immutability of records; however, overall risk remains dependent on vulnerabilities in key-storage infrastructure and the quality of smart-contract configuration; therefore, organizational regulations for segregation of duties, backup procedures, and staff training are required. The scientific novelty is expressed in integrating cryptographic verification with streaming control as a unified provability framework, in which the digital record is treated as a verifiable artifact and a source of real-time audit evidence. The practical significance lies in proposing a set of implementation rules that help synchronize accounting and control, increase trust among investors and regulators, reduce relative losses from fraud, and lay the groundwork for subsequent automation of consistency tests and visual analytics for managerial decision-making.