Blockchain Papers

Hadi Nurhadi, Mahdi Mahdi, Irdawati Irdawati, Meliana Meliana

This article examines how the adoption of blockchain technology influences audit efficiency and fraud detection within modern accounting practice. As financial transactions increasingly move into distributed ledger environments, external auditors are compelled to revisit the assumptions, procedures, and tools that underpin traditional assurance work. Through a systematic review of contemporary auditing, accounting information systems, and financial technology literature, this study identifies the mechanisms through which blockchain reshapes the audit process. The findings indicate that blockchain adoption enhances efficiency primarily by enabling real-time access to immutable transaction records, reducing reliance on sampling-based procedures, automating control testing through smart contracts, and facilitating continuous auditing. At the same time, the technology strengthens fraud detection capacity by improving the traceability of transactions, increasing the difficulty of retroactive manipulation, and supporting forensic analysis of anomalous patterns. However, the realization of these benefits is conditional on several factors, including auditor competence, integration with legacy systems, regulatory clarity, data privacy constraints, and the risk that fraud shifts to points where the blockchain boundary intersects with off-chain processes. The review concludes that blockchain does not eliminate the need for professional skepticism; rather, it redefines the focus of auditor judgment from verifying recorded transactions to evaluating the reliability of the underlying technology environment and its governance. Practical implications for audit firms, standard-setting bodies, and regulators are discussed.

Jing Du, Sabri Boubaker, Riadh Manita, Ling Ye

Purpose This study examines how auditors respond to firms' disclosed blockchain engagement. While the technology offers potential efficiency gains, it also introduces new risks and complexity. We investigate whether and how auditors use audit pricing and auditor resignation as their strategies to manage blockchain-related risks. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a large sample of Chinese A-share listed companies spanning 2016 to 2022. We extract data regarding corporate blockchain engagement by conducting textual analysis on firms’ publicly disclosed reports. Regression analysis is applied to verify the research hypotheses, followed by a series of robustness tests. In addition, we carry out cross-sectional tests and examine auditors’ responses to distinct categories of blockchain-related activities. We further investigate the relative priority of auditors’ risk management strategies and identify potential channels. Findings There is a positive relation between firms’ disclosed blockchain engagement and audit fees. This relation is more pronounced among larger audit firms, auditors without an information technology (IT) background and those with shorter tenures. Both audit effort and audit risk serve as two plausible channels linking companies’ engagement in blockchain to increased audit fees. Firms engaging in blockchain to facilitate management processes, rather than provide blockchain-related products or services, are associated with elevated audit fees. Although blockchain engagement is also related to a higher likelihood of auditor resignation, we observe a hierarchical pattern in auditor responses, with fee adjustments being the more prevalent initial reaction relative to resignation. Research limitations/implications Our disclosure-based measure may not fully distinguish the depth of adoption, investor-facing signaling or strategic narrative because doing so would require obtaining in-depth blockchain data from the sample firms. This is highly challenging as such data are not subject to mandatory disclosure by regulators and may constitute corporate confidential information. Our findings should be interpreted as auditors’ responses to “perceived blockchain-related risks” rather than a direct response to “the adoption of blockchain technology.” Practical implications First, for audit firms, our results underscore the importance of investing in technological training and developing firm-level expertise in emerging technologies such as blockchain. The finding that the fee premium is concentrated among auditors without IT backgrounds suggests that audit firms that proactively build technological competence may be better positioned to serve clients engaging with new technologies while managing their own costs. Second, for corporate managers, our findings alert them that public blockchain engagement, even when disclosed for strategic signaling purposes, may carry tangible costs in the form of higher audit fees, particularly when blockchain is deployed for internal management processes. This cost should be factored into firms’ cost–benefit analyses when making blockchain investment decisions. Third, for regulators and standard-setters, the heterogeneity in auditor responses documented in our study highlights the need for clearer accounting and auditing guidance for blockchain-based transactions, which would reduce the uncertainty that currently drives elevated audit pricing. Originality/value This study provides evidence consistent with auditors strategically adapting to technological disruptions in their risk management practices. The study offers timely and practical insights for auditors, regulators and corporate managers as blockchain applications continue to proliferate.

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.