There are various challenges that accountants may face in practice for which there is presently no accounting method. Accountants, for example, have no choice but to rely on existing accounting standards because no accounting standard exists to clarify how cryptocurrency should be accounted for.
What is the concept behind cryptocurrency?
It is a digital payment and does not rely upon banks to verify transactions. It’s a friend system that lets anybody send and receive money anywhere.
Digital wallets are used to store cryptocurrency. The transactions you make with bitcoin funds are recorded in a public ledger. Its payments exist solely as a digital world to an online database identifying specific transactions rather than as real money carried around and exchanged in the real world.
The name has the fact that it employs encryption to authenticate transactions. It implies that storing and sending bitcoin data between wallets and public ledgers requires complex code.
What are its role and work?
Cryptocurrencies are based on the database, a public distributed database that keeps track of transactions and is updated by currency holders. Cryptocurrency pieces are formed through mining, which uses computational power to solve complex mathematical equations to earn coins.
You don’t possess anything concrete if you hold bitcoin. You have a key that allows you to move a record or a quantity from one person to that without involving a responsible third party. Users may also purchase the currency from brokers, storing and spending using encrypted wallets.
Is it an opportunity or threat?
Cryptography, cloud services, and the ongoing expansion of communications technology are among the technical breakthroughs propelling this brave new world.
These Fourth Industrial Revolution elements are thrilling and perplexing, blurring the borders between our preconceived notions of what money is, where it originates from, who can make it, and how it may be kept and transported.
When you combine this with the same technology to produce instruments like non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You have an ecosystem that offers both opportunities and risks to company models and reputations.
Scams
I’m afraid of moving too quickly, but I also don’t want to be left behind. Recently, Natwest issued a warning to its online app users about cryptocurrency frauds. At the same time, many prominent US banks, including Wells Fargo, were eager to provide crypto investment options to high-net-worth clients.
What might accounting standards be applied to cryptocurrency?
Since bitcoin is a sort of digital money, it may appear that it should be treated like cash at first. On the other hand, Cryptocurrencies cannot be regarded as equal to money (money) under IAS 7 and IAS 32 since they cannot be freely traded for any item or service.
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Intangible Assets
According to IAS 38, Intangible Assets, digital currencies appear to fit the definition of an intangible asset. An identifiable non-monetary item with no physical component is defined as an intangible asset under this criterion.
According to IAS 38, an asset is identifiable if separable from the contract or other legal rights. It is detachable if a purchase may be removed or divided from the entity and sold, transferred, licensed, rented, or exchanged independently or in combination with a linked contract, identified asset, or obligation.
Role of Accountants
Accountants who deal with technical topics and make important business reporting decisions. The FASB is in charge of developing accounting principles (GAAP) to make cryptocurrency reporting easier. However, there is currently no accounting standard specifically for cryptocurrencies.
Intangible asset accounting is commonly used under US GAAP and IFRS. Because they are not now legal money, they are not categorised as cash or cash equivalents. Nonetheless, when crypto-assets are housed on balance sheets by publicly traded companies, there is a risk of volatility spilling over into our established stock capital markets.
Conclusion
So because detection and measurement of cryptocurrencies involve so much judgment and ambiguity. A certain level of disclosure is essential to enlighten users in their economic decision-making. As a result, accounting for cryptocurrency is not as straightforward as it may look. Because there is presently no IFRS standard, existing accounting standards must be referred to (and perhaps even the Conceptual Framework of Financial Reporting). SBR candidates should be prepared to apply this method in an exam environment since it allows them to prove their conclusions, which is a strategy that employers would anticipate in practice.
