When it comes to accounting in the cryptocurrency market, several barriers immediately come to mind that complicate the process:

"I bought 1 BTC, the price decreased, then increased, I sold part of it, swapped it into the Ethereum network through a cross-chain bridge, took some WBTC, paid a commission, sent WBTC to a lending platform (staking). BTC at this time grew a little + interest on staking."

And how to take all this into account?

I recently came across a proposal from FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board).

The FASB establishes and improves generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the United States.

Well, the FASB proposes accounting rules for the measurement, presentation and disclosure of crypto assets. The provisions are said to help companies accurately reflect the structure of such assets. If adopted, the rules will be the first explicit accounting standards for crypto assets under US GAAP.

There are a few other proposals in the works from a couple of associations, but they are not as far along as FASB.

FASB rules

FASB proposes to apply the rules to well-known crypto assets - not only BTC and ETH, but also others where there are volumes and a certain infrastructure has been created, and not the great and terrible memcoins (hello PEPE).

According to the council's proposal,  cryptoassets that meet 6 conditions must be measured at fair value, and changes in value must be declared in each reporting period (profit, loss, no change).

By “No change” we mean stablecoins, although Do Kwon has a different opinion on this matter.

What else do they offer?

  • Separate accounting of each asset in the “Intangible Assets” section (or creation of a separate “Virtual Assets” item).

  • It doesn’t matter whether any actions were taken with cryptocurrency during the reporting period, we record either profit, loss, or no changes.

Explanations:

“I bought BTC, sent WBTC for staking, received income, paid a commission, at the end of the reporting period you show that now I have X + X amount of interest on my WBTC balance. Total X + X.”

We compare the received amount with the previous reporting period and get the result: profit, loss, no changes.

  • Each infusion of additional funds is also taken into account.

  • A separate item for those cryptocurrencies where the company/investor holds a significant number of tokens from the total issue and changes in quantity during the reporting period.

This item appeared after the events associated with FTX, when many projects began to crumble after information appeared about FTX’s ownership of a significant issue of projects (FTX Ventures invested in projects at the initial stage).

  • Cryptocurrencies that have depreciated SHOULD NOT be written off as a company loss.

If this clause is not introduced, then there is a risk of unfair behavior in order to reduce the tax base due to alleged losses in cryptocurrency.

Like, the company invested everything in PEPE, and the price went down.

FASB's proposal looks quite interesting, but so far it only covers some areas of the industry. We haven’t yet delved into NFTs, what to do with the P2E sector, etc.

Но, по крайней мере, работа в этом направлении ведется.