Adaeze Linus Miracle, Moniaye Ayadi, Dr. J. O. Omokehinde
Blockchain technology has emerged as one of the most transformative digital innovations with the potential to improve transparency, security, and operational efficiency in accounting and auditing. Despite these potential benefits, adoption among accounting firms in developing economies remains limited due to concerns regarding implementation costs, technological complexity, and regulatory uncertainty. This study examines the cost–benefit dynamics of blockchain adoption among accounting firms in Nigeria by investigating the influence of implementation costs and operational benefits on blockchain adoption and evaluating the effect of blockchain adoption on operational performance. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted, and primary data were obtained from 220 accounting professionals drawn from accounting and auditing firms in Lagos State, Nigeria. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and linear regression techniques were employed to analyse the data. The findings indicate that implementation costs significantly reduce the likelihood of blockchain adoption, whereas perceived operational benefits significantly enhance adoption. Furthermore, blockchain adoption exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on the operational performance of accounting firms through improvements in reporting accuracy, transparency, operational efficiency, and client confidence. The findings support the Technology Acceptance Model and Transaction Cost Economics by demonstrating that organisations evaluate emerging technologies based on the balance between expected benefits and associated implementation costs. The study concludes that although blockchain implementation requires substantial initial investment in infrastructure, integration, training, and regulatory compliance, its long-term operational benefits outweigh these costs. The study recommends phased implementation strategies, investment in digital competencies, and the development of supportive regulatory frameworks to accelerate blockchain adoption within the Nigerian accounting profession.
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.
PurposeThe enhanced consolidation of cloud accounting models within geographical boundaries of India has established latest standards in financial auditing, reporting, compliance procedures and virtual accessibility. Nonetheless the legal framework in the nation is evolving simultaneously to accentuate audit trails, nationalized storage of data and sovereignity of data. Latest modifications under the companies act 2013; the company’s fourth amendment rules and the new policies issued by RBI for data localization have radically shifted the compliance framework for all the accounting professionals and the service providers in the country. Regardless of the mounting academic discussion on adaptability of cloud accounting around the globe, meagre research has highlighted hoe nationalized legal requirements have modified the framework infrastructure, risks involved and acceptability of accounting professionals in india which will be investigated in this study. This study will further identify the pros and cons for adoption of cloud accounting and will come out with suggestive cloud accounting models for Indian scenario. Design/Methodology/ApproachAn empirical and analytical research design has been adopted for the study and snowball and convenient sampling has been used for primary data collection..A sample size of 140 has been calculated using G-power. The research is confined to chartered accountants of agra district to whom a well structured questionnaire was sent using google forms.stastical tools used in this study is chi square test. FindingsCloud accounting is a tremendous shift towards triple entry system wherein a transaction is verified by a third party using cryptography and blockchain technology thereby increasing authenticity and trust by piling all entries in a public ledger. As a result of this more businesses are adopting virtual workforce models. Introduction of cloud based models in accounting profession has enhanced the roles of key processing indicators in the business.Cloud technology magnifies employees networking and association thereby increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Chartered accountants who will accept this change will have new opportunities open for them and those who will look at this technology with ostrich approach will be left behind. OriginalityThe findings will be valuable for further research work to be done in this area. The findings will help various researchers, chartered accountants, accounting professionals etc to understand the implementation of cloud accounting in developing countries like India and to understand in depth the implementation and adoption of cloud based accounting in the Indian scenario.
Open access
Innovations and Analysis in Business and Education
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.
Abstract Financial time-series forecasting lies between AI and market microstructure, but most studies optimise generic error metrics instead of risk-adjusted economic value under realistic frictions. Unlike NLP and vision, the field lacks a shared, reviewer-enforced standard for data handling and evaluation, leading to persistent problems such as data leakage, backtest overfitting and metric-chasing on RMSE/MAE. This paper introduces QFRS a novel, enforceable by reviewers and editors, seven-standard framework and checklist for evaluating and reporting financial asset forecasting and trading claims. QFRS covers quantitative studies on equities (stocks), forex, cryptocurrencies, rates, derivatives (futures, forwards, options, swaps), energy prices, and commodities (gold, oil and silver) and other asset classes. The seven standards specify an end-to-end experimental pipeline, covering (i) dataset construction, (ii) labelling, (iii) point-in-time feature engineering, (iv) leakage-free scaling or normalisation, (v) time-respecting data splits, (vi) evaluation metrics and (vii) cost and slippage-aware backtesting with explicit execution assumptions and decision rules mapping predictions to positions. To validate the standard’s diagnostic value, a compliance audit of Scopus-indexed forex forecasting papers published in 2025 is presented. None of these papers achieved full compliance across all seven standards, with economic backtesting (12.2%) and causal scaling (31.7%) recorded the lowest pass rates. QFRS underpins a public state-of-the-art leaderboard, ensuring that only studies satisfying these standards are ranked, with the goal of shifting the literature from opaque, error-metric-driven results to transparent, economically meaningful and comparable benchmarks. The accompanying leaderboard is available and updated regularly at http://mkhushi.github.io .
This study examines the current state of digital asset auditing and proposes a clearer future vision through a systematic review of relevant literature and prior studies. It highlights the fundamental differences between digital and traditional assets, explains the classification of digital assets and their close association with blockchain technology, and analyzes the existing accounting and auditing frameworks considering international standards and provides a brief overview of the status of Egyptian legislation. The study also discusses the evolving role of auditors and the main stages of the audit process in the digital environment. The findings indicate that rapid digital transformation requires the development of advanced auditing standards and methodologies, and that the adoption of data analytics, smart contracts, and continuous auditing, together with enhancing auditors’ technical and professional competencies, contributes to improving audit quality, transparency, and risk management related to digital assets.
Open access
Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation
Financial Reporting and XBRL
Innovations and Analysis in Business and Education
Supplementary appendix to the article "Digital Cash and the Governance of Payment Finality." It contains material displaced from the main text for length, referenced at the corresponding points in the article, and forming no part of the manuscript word count. The appendix documents in full the evidence that claims for digital cash treat technical irreversibility as legal finality, with the passages and page references from Böhme, Christin, Edelman and Moore (2015), Cong and He (2018), De Filippi and Hassan (2016), Kiviat (2015), Atzori (2017) and Politou, Casino, Alepis and Patsakis (2019), together with the passages in which several of those authors qualify or abandon the claim. It further sets out the argument that append-only recording does not entail unrecoverable entitlement: the regulatory history of write-once, read-many electronic recordkeeping under SEC Rule 17a-4 and its 2022 amendment; the accounting mechanics by which a chargeback operates as a contra entry rather than an erasure; the equivalence between that mechanism and reversal by subsequent transaction on a distributed ledger; and two limits on the argument, being value irretrievable because no person holds the key, and records whose own existence is the wrong, as with personal data subject to an erasure right.
The rapid advancement of digital technologies has significantly transformed auditing practices, leading to the emergence of audit analytics as an important research domain that integrates accounting, auditing, and data science. This study aims to examine the evolution, intellectual structure, influential contributions, and emerging research trends in audit analytics through a bibliometric analysis approach. Data were collected from the Scopus database using relevant keywords related to audit analytics and analyzed using VOSviewer to perform citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, density visualization, and collaboration network analysis. The findings indicate that audit analytics research has experienced substantial development, particularly with the increasing adoption of big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, blockchain, and automation technologies. Citation analysis identifies key contributions focusing on the role of big data and artificial intelligence in improving audit quality, audit judgment, fraud detection, and decision-making processes. The keyword analysis reveals that recent research trends have shifted from traditional analytical methods toward intelligent and automated audit systems that support continuous auditing and risk-based decision-making. Furthermore, collaboration analysis demonstrates the global nature of audit analytics research, with the United States emerging as the most influential contributor and strong research connections among countries and institutions. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of the development trajectory of audit analytics and identifying future research opportunities related to generative artificial intelligence, explainable AI, cybersecurity, and digital audit transformation.
Victor Michelle, Natalie Michelle, Emilie Michelle, Elias Michelle
Abstract:Intellectual Property (IP) represents the largest class of assets in the global economy ($65–100 trillion) yet remains structurally absent from corporate balance sheets under GAAP and IFRS (IAS 38). Consequently, the market capitalisation of technology companies is artificially split only into Tangible Assets (TA) and a Speculative Premium (MP), with the real value of IP hidden inside MP. This technical specification outlines Version 1.0 of the IP Coin methodology, delivering a market-based spot utility token framework designed to materialize the hidden value of intellectual property into a liquid, visible asset layer (IP_visible). By purchasing IP Coin, investors directly capitalise the previously invisible IP of a public company. The platform displays three layers – TA, MP, and IP_visible – and automatically transfers purchase value from MP to IP_visible based on the strict capital conservation rule: MC = TA + IP_visible + MP. The Intangible Dominance Ratio (IDR = IP_visible / MC) updates automatically after every trade as a derived performance metric, rather than a price-setting oracle. This methodology creates the first market-based solution for IP tokenisation without altering accounting standards. Keywords: Fintech, Tokenization, Financial Engineering, Intangible Assets, AI Valuation, Copyright, Capital Markets, Web3 Architecture, Market Decomposition.
Traditional auditing processes are inefficient and produce low-quality audit reports due to human intervention. This research project constructs a novel automated auditing architecture based on smart contracts, comprising four functional modules: (i) data acquisition, (ii) rule encoding, (iii) execution verification, and (iv) report output. This paper demonstrates how to achieve a high-throughput, low-latency, and verifiable automated auditing system by utilizing technologies such as multi-source data cross-validation, formal encoding of audit rules, privacy protection based on zero-knowledge proofs, and cross-chain communication. The developed novel auditing process can shorten the traditional audit cycle to 8 to 15 days, reduce manual operation costs by 37.5% to 44.4%, reduce the error rate to 0.2% to 0.5%, and exhibit high fault tolerance during disaster recovery, making it an effective approach to achieve digital transformation of auditing processes.
The convergence of digital accounting and blockchain technology represents one of the most consequential transformations in contemporary financial management. This study conducts a systematic literature review to examine how blockchain technology reshapes financial record-keeping, transparency, auditability, and accountability in the era of decentralization. Drawing from 25 peer-reviewed publications spanning 2021 to 2026, this research synthesizes empirical findings and theoretical frameworks concerning the adoption, implementation, and outcomes of blockchain-based accounting systems. The review identifies four principal dimensions of transformation: (1) immutable ledger infrastructure that eliminates retrospective manipulation of financial data; (2) smart contract automation that reduces human error and accelerates financial closing cycles; (3) distributed ledger technology (DLT) integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting information systems (AIS); and (4) real-time financial reporting that enhances stakeholder decision-making. This paper further explores persistent challenges, including regulatory ambiguity, interoperability limitations, energy consumption concerns, and the skills gap among accounting professionals. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of ESG reporting dimensions and decentralized governance implications into the blockchain-accounting nexus, areas insufficiently addressed in prior reviews. Findings indicate that blockchain adoption can reduce financial fraud, improve audit efficiency by up to 40%, and enable continuous real-time reporting, fundamentally altering the role of the accountant in a digitally decentralized economy.
Guilherme Martins Soares, João L. D. S. Filho, Nicholas P. Fontanini, Bruno Evaristo
Contratos inteligentes gerenciam ativos digitais de alto valor, mas falhas de segurança frequentemente causam perdas financeiras irreversÃveis. Embora existam diversas ferramentas de auditoria automatizada, seu uso isolado gera altas taxas de falsos positivos e falsos negativos. Este trabalho propõe e avalia um framework unificado para auditoria de contratos inteligentes em Solidity, orquestrando análise estática (Slither), execução simbólica (Mythril) e testes dinâmicos (Foundry). A arquitetura unifica os resultados heterogêneos utilizando o padrão SARIF e aplica um Modelo de Linguagem de Grande Escala (LLM) para traduzir logs brutos em relatórios contextuais explicáveis. Avaliado em um dataset curado de 53 contratos do repositório SmartBugs, o framework alcançou um F1-Score de 92,93%, superando substancialmente o desempenho isolado do Slither (72,28%) e do Mythril (88,42%). Os resultados demonstram que a orquestração hÃbrida mitiga as limitações estruturais de cada motor, reduz a carga cognitiva do auditor e consolida-se como uma plataforma robusta e eficaz para o desenvolvimento seguro no ecossistema Web3.
This study adopts a conceptual and design-oriented approach to investigate blockchain integration into accounting informatization for improving transparency, reliability, and intelligence in enterprise financial services. A blockchain-based big data model is developed using distributed ledger, consensus, and encryption mechanisms to support secure and consistent financial data sharing. A personalized feedback system empowered by smart contracts and data analytics delivers real-time customized accounting information for service-oriented decision-making. Exploratory independence and reliability assessments examine data consistency and system robustness. Preliminary evidence indicates that the proposed framework tends to reduce data deviations, support decision efficiency, and improve user satisfaction over conventional systems. This study contributes to the service-oriented transformation of accounting informatization and offers a design framework for intelligent data-driven financial management systems enabled by blockchain.
Relevance. Problem statement. The rapid development of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and the expansion of blockchain technologies within the digital economy and the broader process of financial digitalization complicate the application of traditional approaches to accounting and taxation of digital assets. The absence of clear criteria for interpreting the economic substance of DeFi and its implications for the recognition, measurement, and disclosure requirements of digital assets leads to heterogeneity in accounting practices, reduced comparability of financial reporting, and increased risks for auditors and investors. Consequently, there is a need to identify accounting-relevant characteristics of DeFi that can serve as a basis for accounting decisions regarding digital assets and for establishing a unified approach to their classification and measurement in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The purpose of the article is to provide a conceptual justification and structured generalization of the impact of DeFi and blockchain technologies on the methodology of accounting for digital assets through the identification of accounting-relevant characteristics that determine the specific features of their recognition, measurement, and disclosure in financial statements in accordance with IFRS, as well as their implications for the formation of tax liabilities within the DeFi environment. Methodology. The research objectives were addressed using general scientific and specialized methods, including analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, abstraction, and a systems approach, which ensured an appropriate level of substantiation of the proposed arguments and the formulation of well-grounded conclusions. Results. The findings indicate that the transactional transparency of blockchain is accompanied by new valuation risks that affect asset measurement and revenue recognition. Existing tax regulations often fail to account for the specific characteristics of the DeFi ecosystem. Accounting-relevant characteristics of DeFi have been systematized, demonstrating that their influence extends beyond the accounting treatment of digital assets to the specific features of the protocol-based financial architecture within which economic rights and obligations are executed through algorithmic mechanisms without a centralized counterparty. Their systemic impact on the application of control criteria, the determination of the existence of contractual rights to claims, the selection of measurement models, the identification of the timing of revenue and liability recognition, and the scope of risk disclosures under IFRS has been substantiated. The theoretical contribution of the results lies in shifting from a descriptive analysis of blockchain technology to a structured accounting interpretation of DeFi from the perspective of control, measurement, and risk management concepts. Practical significance. The identification of accounting-relevant characteristics of DeFi is essential for developing a systematic approach to accounting for digital assets in a decentralized environment, as the protocol-based ecosystem of DeFi fundamentally alters the nature of the emergence of rights and obligations as well as the accrual of income, directly affecting the application of IFRS requirements. Such an approach ensures conceptual consistency between technological innovations and the regulatory framework of accounting and enhances the quality of financial information under conditions of financial system digitalization. The practical significance of the study lies in establishing a basis for updating corporate accounting policies and developing tax instruments that promote transparency and reduce risks in the digital asset sector. Prospects for further research. Future research should focus on improving disclosure standards and developing algorithmic models for the automated identification of economic transactions and tax events based on on-chain data.
This paper addresses the systemic crisis of data silos and trust deficiencies in modern enterprises by designing and implementing a high-throughput, privacy-preserving blockchain-based distributed accounting information system. By deconstructing the pain points of traditional financial architectures, this paper proposes a multi-layered architecture integrating a dynamic weighted hybrid consensus mechanism and a directed acyclic graph parallel contract engine, completely overturning the centralized ledger paradigm. The system utilizes zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption mechanisms to construct encrypted state flow channels, achieving public ownership confirmation and logically transparent auditing of the entire network ledger while protecting the privacy of core business funds. Extreme concurrency tests conducted using enterprise-grade hardware matrices and containerized clusters demonstrate that, while maintaining strong consistency and fault tolerance, the system achieves a concurrent throughput of 8850 TPS, with end-to-end confirmation latency compressed to less than 120ms. Performance degradation is minimal even with a tenfold increase in node size, proving the outstanding engineering value and revolutionary potential of this distributed architecture in enabling high-frequency global business-finance collaboration and reducing cross-domain audit friction costs.
The rapid emergence of contemporary financial concepts—such as decentralized finance, cryptocurrency, and algorithmic trading—has necessitated an advanced level of digital literacy to maintain and achieve financial well-being. This paper presents a comprehensive mixed-methods study to explore the intersection of these domains. The qualitative phase utilizes a News-Reflection Analysis (NRA) of 150 mainstream financial news articles from 2021 to 2025, yielding a robust coding framework and foundational propositions. Building upon these qualitative insights, the quantitative phase employs Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) on a simulated dataset of 450 respondents. We test a conceptual model integrating Contemporary Financial Concepts (CFC), Digital Literacy (DL), Financial Behavior (FB), and Financial Well-Being (FWB). Findings reveal that while CFC positively influences financial behaviour, digital literacy serves as a critical moderator, significantly amplifying the translation of complex financial knowledge into tangible well-being. This paper provides a Q1-journal-ready framework, complete with qualitative coding schemes, an advanced SEM path diagram, simulate hypothesis testing, and a rigorously validated 22-item measurement instrument.
In an era where data integrity and secure verification are paramount, especially in sectors such as governance, healthcare and education, traditional centralized document verification systems fall short due to vulnerabilities like single points of failure, limited traceability, and lack of accountability. This study proposes a LRDDV (A layered Ledger approach for Robust Digital Documents Verification system using blockchain) model to create a multi-level method for verifying documents. This would solve these issues. It adds a lightweight consensus model that is led by validators and a way to lock information based on role to do this. People who have jobs at different hierarchy levels can add information to papers more quickly. This makes sure that the changes are safe and can be made all the way through. If 51 % of validators agree on something, it works like a real board of directors. It makes people trust each other and be open without having to do mining, which takes a lot of resources. It works better, costs less, and is easier to keep track of than centralized models, according to tests especially useful for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) as well as for government sector. Right now, things work fine in a controlled environment. Although, in the future, it will be safer and more scalable because it will be connected to group blockchain systems, use self-sovereign identification standards, and have built-in zero- knowledge proofs. The suggested answer allows document checking to happen in public places with lots of people in a safe, open, and spread-out manner.
The paper systematizes current regulatory and legal approaches across various jurisdictions, as well as theoretical and methodological recommendations proposed by scholars regarding the identification of different types of digital assets. It substantiates the hierarchical relationship among the concepts of "digital assets", "virtual assets" and "crypto-assets", which describe forms of digital value. The procedure for recognizing digital assets on the balance sheet is clarified. A three-tier classification of digital assets is proposed based on the following criteria: the mode of existence and circulation of digital value, the use of distributed ledger technology, and the mechanism for ensuring value stability. The study develops a sequence for accounting recognition of a digital asset as an intangible asset, a commodity, or a financial instrument, in compliance with accounting standards. It also justifies the classification of certain types of digital assets functionally similar to digital securities, which are recognized as financial instruments.
Samar Alsulaimani, Ming Zhao, Farookh Khadeer Hussain
• Innovative Fractional Ownership Framework: The Fractional Digital Asset Ownership (FDAO) model uses fractional NFTs (FNFTs) to facilitate the co-ownership of digital assets, focusing on software code. • Addressing Ownership Management Challenges: Building on FNFT and blockchain technology, this study proposes an intelligent solution for fractional digital asset ownership that ensures the accurate tracking of ownership rights through the integration of FNFTs with blockchain technology. • Practical Prototype Development: This study demonstrates the FDAO framework’s capability to securely and transparently manage handling digital asset transactions using FNFTs and smart contracts implemented through Remix and OpenZeppelin. • Empirical Evaluation of FNFT Application: This research examines the effectiveness of FNFT frameworks in supporting fractional ownership, highlighting their potential for real-world digital asset applications. • Market Accessibility and Inclusivity: By enabling fractional ownership, the FDAO model increases accessibility to digital assets and supports ownership democratisation. • Identification of Limitations and Future Directions: The study discusses the challenges related to regulatory compliance, scalability, and costs associated with FNFTs and other blockchain platforms and outlines compliance strategies that may support a broad range of applications. A new generation of digital assets is being managed using blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which introduce novel opportunities for verifying ownership rights and establishing provenance. This paper presents an innovative framework called Fractional Digital Asset Ownership (FDAO), which aims to create NFTs for digital artifacts, such as software code, and extend their functionality through fractionalized NFTs (FNFT). Leveraging the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern, FDAO enables effective co-ownership tracking across the lifecycle of digital assets, providing a structured and efficient mechanism for defining and managing co-ownership. A system prototype has been developed and tested in an integrated development environment (IDE) using decentralised applications (DApps) and smart contracts. Unlike existing NFT-based models, FDAO incorporates an intelligent, automated fractionalization and verification mechanism that combines the ERC-1155 and ERC-20 standards to enhance co-ownership management and scalability. This integration addresses the critical challenges related to transparency, security, and lifecycle management in digital asset co-ownership. The prototype, implemented using Remix and OpenZeppelin, demonstrates how FDAO enables secure, transparent, and efficient transfer and management of digital assets. By integrating FNFT functionality with smart contracts, the framework provides a robust, scalable, and intelligent method for managing digital assets. It also maintains transparency and trust throughout the asset lifecycle.
Abstract Cryptocurrency has been the subject of heightened regulatory and investor attention in recent years, and regulators and policymakers across the globe are deliberating on how to account for, regulate, tax, and oversee digital assets and cryptocurrency marketplaces. Yet researchers have a limited understanding of key attributes of those who deal in crypto assets, such as whether their financial sophistication differs from that of other investors. Using U.S. administrative data, we provide evidence on (i) the attributes of taxpayers reporting cryptocurrency sales to the IRS, (ii) how these attributes are evolving, and (iii) how investors treat cryptocurrency versus other financial assets in certain settings. The results suggest that average reporting cryptocurrency sellers exhibit demographic attributes generally associated with less financial sophistication and are more likely to trade in meme stocks. Overall, we provide timely evidence that can inform cryptocurrency policy deliberations by highlighting the characteristics of taxpayers who appear to report cryptocurrency sales.
Abstract Blockchain technology is emerging as a transformative innovation in the field of accounting by enhancing transparency, accuracy, and reliability of financial information. Traditional accounting systems often face challenges such as data manipulation, lack of real-time reporting, and dependence on centralized control. Blockchain, with its decentralized and immutable nature, provides a secure platform for recording financial transactions in a transparent and verifiable manner. Each transaction is recorded in a distributed ledger that cannot be altered without consensus, reducing the chances of fraud and errors. This technology also supports real-time data sharing among stakeholders, improving trust and accountability in financial reporting. The study explores how blockchain can improve accounting practices, auditing processes, and financial decision-making while highlighting its benefits, challenges, and future potential in the accounting profession.
This article examines how accounting standards shape the taxation of cryptoassets, focusing on key differences under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP), and selected offshore jurisdictions. Fragmented accounting and tax frameworks create substantial obstacles to cross-border compliance despite their growing economic significance. The article draws on a comparative regulatory analysis and corporate case studies (MicroStrategy, Coinbase, and Tesla) and identifies three persistent frictions at the book-tax interface. First, classification friction arises because jurisdictions treat the same asset as intangible property, a financial instrument, or a commodity thereby creating uncertainty for fiat-backed stablecoins and security-like tokens. Second, timing friction stems from mismatches between accrual-based financial reporting and realization-based tax rules especially for staking rewards, crypto lending, decentralized finance (DeFi), and derivatives. Third, valuation friction reflects tension between historical cost and fair value compounded by volatility and fragmented liquidity which disproportionately affects complex instruments and international structures. The article proposes the tax-accounting alignment framework (TAAF) as a conceptual roadmap to address these challenges. It prioritizes economic substance over legal form using functional classification, blockchain finality as an objective recognition trigger and adaptive valuation thresholds. The framework illustrates how these principles can simplify compliance and enhance tax transparency in cross-border and arbitrage-sensitive settings.