Baocheng Zeng, Jinhao Yang, Peilin Han, Kangnan He
Public cryptocurrency archives may appear usable when files exist, although factor research requires observations available and executable at each decision time. We audit public Binance BTCUSDT USD-M perpetual-futures data using event, publication, and availability times and separate proposal from deterministic auditing, evaluation, and holdout access. An initial gapless five-minute requirement for trade, mark, index, and open interest failed: the longest unrepaired intersection was 304.5729166666667 days. A disclosed revision made trade, mark, index, and realized funding the core streams and made open interest optional because its publication time was unverified. The revised mask retained 727 complete UTC days and supported a 436/145/146-day train, validation, and historical-holdout split. On 80 frozen known-rule templates, the auditor detected 40/40 violations and rejected 0/40 legal templates. Across ten null-signal paths, full auditing reduced mean false passes from 0.2910 to 0.0625. Under matched valid-candidate budgets, the audited adaptive agent tied random search and did not establish superiority. In the one-time historical holdout, all evaluated runs had positive IC but negative net Sharpe under primary costs. We therefore report a scoped negative result rather than a profitability or agent-superiority claim.
This review synthesizes theoretical and empirical insights from 1055 peer-reviewed articles on artificial intelligence (AI), corporate governance, and ethics. Situated in the corporate governance and accounting literature, it develops a computational framework to identify thematic patterns and conceptual links among AI, transparency, accounting, governance, and ESG. Using latent Dirichlet allocation, co-occurrence network analysis, sentence-level semantic similarity, and exploratory regression, the study identifies three recurring configurations of conceptual association: (1) Ethics, Governance, and Transparency; (2) Machine Learning, Finance, Blockchain, and Accounting; and (3) Corporate, ESG, and Accounting. The findings indicate that these themes are repeatedly connected within the scholarly literature.
The main objective of this study was to examine the effect of blockchain technology on future of external auditing in Nigeria. Decentralized network and consensus mechanism were the proxies for blockchain technology. Thus, two hypotheses were formulated to guide the investigation and the statistical test of parameter estimates was conducted using least squares regression model operated with E-Views.12. Survey design was adopted and data for the study was obtained through the use of e-questionnaire survey sent to the various Staff WhatsApp Group Platform of the selected audit firms in Anambra State Nigeria. The results of the study reveal that the use of decentralized network has positive and significant effect on the future of external auditing in Nigeria at 1% level of significance. Also, the use of consensus mechanism in auditing has positive and significant effect on the future of external auditing in Nigeria at 5% significant level. Based on this, the study concludes that blockchain technology ensure the future of external auditing in Nigeria. In lieu of the findings of the study, the study recommends for the continual use of decentralized network in auditing as the future of external auditing lies on it. Also, the use of consensus mechanism should also be encouraged as it ensures accuracy and reliability in audit reporting.
Blockchain technology records transactions on a distributed ledger that is cryptographically chained, replicated across independent nodes, and validated by consensus rather than by any single institution. Because the technology verifies that recorded transactions occurred and have not been altered, some commentators have concluded that it will make external auditors redundant. This article rejects that conclusion but takes the underlying disruption seriously. It argues that blockchain automates a narrow and historically labor-intensive slice of the audit, namely the verification of the existence, occurrence, and mathematical accuracy of recorded transactions, while leaving untouched the components of assurance that depend on professional judgment: valuation, accounting estimates, classification, completeness of off-chain events, related party identification, and going concern assessment. At the same time, the technology creates new objects that require assurance, including consensus protocols, cryptographic key management, smart contract code, and the oracles that connect ledgers to the physical world. The article examines the consequences for auditing standards, particularly the treatment of blockchain records as audit evidence, and for the education, skills, and business model of the profession. The external auditor’s future role, it concludes, lies not in verifying transactions but in assuring the systems that now verify them, and in exercising the judgment that no ledger can encode.
The rapid diffusion of digital technologies has fundamentally reshaped the way organizations generate and report financial and non-financial information, challenging traditional audit approaches that rely on manual and sample-based procedures. Building on this context, this paper aimed to provide a comprehensive synthesis of empirical evidence regarding the impact of digital technologies on auditing and to identify the key factors influencing their adoption across internal, external, and public sector audit functions during the 2015–2026 period. Using a qualitative descriptive design and a systematic literature review guided by the PICOC framework and PRISMA protocol, 33 relevant articles indexed in Scopus were selected from an initial pool of 959 publications. The findings showed that the use of various technologies, including computer-assisted audit techniques (CAATs), audit analytics, big data, artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, blockchain, and process mining, generally enhanced the effectiveness and efficiency of audit procedures, strengthened internal controls, and reduced errors and financial statement restatements, while simultaneously repositioning auditors as more strategic and data-driven partners. At the same time, the success of digital audit transformation was strongly influenced by technological infrastructure, data governance and security, organizational capabilities, leadership support, regulatory environments, and auditors’ individual competencies, indicating that digitalization was neither a neutral nor an automatic process. This study provides practical implications for audit firms, internal audit units, supreme audit institutions, and regulators in developing more targeted and sustainable digital audit strategies, while also proposing future research directions concerning the organizational and institutional dynamics of digital auditing.
This study examined blockchain technology's potential to enhance audit efficiency in selected service firms. Traditional auditing is often hindered by data manipulation, limited transparency, time-consuming verification, and high costs challenges that blockchain's decentralised, immutable, and transparent ledger system can plausibly address. The research assessed blockchain's role in improving audit efficiency, focusing on automation and realtime auditing, distributed ledger effects, and consensus mechanisms. Data was gathered through questionnaires, observation, and a technical readiness survey, and analysed using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and multiple regression. The study evaluated current auditing practices to identify the benefits and barriers of blockchain implementation, examining existing audit challenges, blockchain's capacity to resolve them, and the implications for service firms. Respondents were drawn from service firms with interest or prospects in adopting blockchain for audit activities. Findings showed marked improvements in audit accuracy, transparency, and overall efficiency, though adoption barriers, cost, and the need for regulatory structures were also identified. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on blockchain's practical application in auditing, offering guidance to service firms, audit practitioners, and policymakers on successful implementation. By addressing these challenges and leveraging blockchain's opportunities, service firms can achieve cleaner, safer, and more efficient audit practices. The research confirms that blockchain technology plays a significant role in enhancing audit efficiency within service firms.
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Innovations and Analysis in Business and Education