Accounting for crypto-assets: a comparative analysis and overview of accounting rules and practices

Résumé En

Given the ongoing evolution, growth potential and diversity of crypto-assets as so as their unique and risky nature, there are intensive debates on the accounting treatment by holders and issuers of crypto-assets at the international level. The purpose of this research is to deepen and broaden knowledge about how crypto-assets are classified, measured, recognized and disclosed in Europe, US and Asia. The first stage of the study is exploratory in nature. In the first step, we make a literature review of current regulatory frameworks of cryptocurrency as a blockchain technology application as well as of existing accounting rules and practices. In the second stage, we collect the data from the annual reports of 100 publicly listed companies for the 2021 and 2022 periods. These companies come from following countries: US, France, Canada, UK, Germany and some Asian countries. We manually extract the information related to classification, recognition, measurement and disclosure of cryptocurrencies. Our objective is to identify the best practices, but also gaps that exist and to come up with a list of recommendations that can be useful to policy makers, accounting standard setters and other market participants.