Risk and regulations

Building trust in the cryptocurrency world with audit

Leading the way with assurance services in cryptocurrency world

^{_{Client: Digital assets service provider}}

^{_{Industry: Digital assets}}

^{_{Our role: Provide assurance services to a client engaged in cryptocurrency activities}}

Setting the scene

Since its emergence in 2009, cryptocurrencies have disrupted capital markets globally. Fast forward a decade later, the market is now seeing increased adoption and recognition of this asset class by investors, financial institutions, and regulators.

As the sector matures, crypto players need to make bigger strides in establishing and ensuring stakeholder trust, such as obtaining an independent external audit opinion from recognised professional services firms.

Issues and challenges

Despite the rapid growth that we’re seeing, cryptocurrencies remain uncharted waters for many. Against the backdrop of market uncertainty and evolving regulatory needs, it can be challenging for digital assets service providers to obtain an independent and clean external audit opinion.

To overcome this, our client needed an auditor who not only understands the complexity of a cryptocurrency-related business model and its accompanying risks, but also can apply a technology-enabled assurance methodology to facilitate their audit.

How we helped

As part of the external audit, our dedicated digital assets team sat down together with the client’s finance and crypto operations functions to understand the design and implementation of their cryptocurrency-related processes. We leveraged our Halo Cryptocurrency Solution - which currently supports a wide range of digital currencies* - to validate the client’s keys ownership and independently interrogated the public blockchain. This allows for the gathering of audit evidence on their transactions and balances to support our audit methodology.

*Our Halo solution currently supports Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, LiteCoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Ripple (certain transaction types only), Tezos, ERC 20 tokens - PAX, USDT, USDC, OAX, LGO tokens. Learn more about our Halo solution here.

Impact and potential

With a completed audit, our client is able to demonstrate to their stakeholders that they have adequate understanding of the relevant risks which have implications on their financial performance. This enables them to continually scale their operations and seize opportunities in the digital asset space.

“The rapid adoption of digital assets has presented the industry with evolving challenges and demands. We will do our part for the ecosystem by building trust among stakeholders, and solving problems important to them.”

Wanyi WongFinTech Leader