AICPA offers new crypto guidance, IRS recommendations

The American Institute of CPAs has updated its practice aid, Accounting for and Auditing of Digital Assets, with new guidance on auditing stablecoins and cryptomining revenue, while separately asking the IRS to speed up its processes for changing names and addresses of taxpayers.

Processing Content

The August update contains a new chapter devoted to accounting considerations for stablecoin issuers. It deals with the recognition of obligations associated with issued tokens and considerations related to reserve assets that support stablecoins. The additional content comes in response to increased adoption of stablecoins and increasing demand from practitioners for guidance on accounting for these arrangements.

A new auditing chapter discusses the considerations related to mining revenue arrangements, such as transactions involving mining pool participants and data center hosts.

The guidance explains emerging revenue models that have become more prevalent across the digital asset field and provides auditors with more considerations and example procedures that can be performed when weighing these activities.

The practice aid has been updated to reflect AICPA auditing standards through Statement on Auditing Standards No. 148 and includes revisions related to SAS No. 146, Quality Management for an Engagement Conducted in Accordance With Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (AU-C Section 220).