New SEC guidance on accounting and disclosures rankles Commissioner Peirce

U.S. corporations that safeguard their purchasers’ crypto-assets obtained new accounting steering Thursday within the type of a Securities and Change Fee, or SEC, Workers Accounting Bulletin. The steering acquired a powerful response from SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, a steadfast crypto advocate.

Workers Accounting Bulletin 121 famous the excessive technological, authorized and regulatory dangers related to the custody of crypto-assets, relative to conventional belongings. These dangers impression the operations and monetary situation of corporations similar to Coinbase, PayPal and Robinhood, which safeguard customers’ crypto-assets and permit the customers to commerce them on their platforms. Because of this, corporations are suggested to listing their customers’ belongings on their books as liabilities in addition to belongings at their truthful worth at preliminary recognition.

As well as, the bulletin suggested corporations on disclosing the dangers from crypto-assets and reminds them of present guidelines on disclosure.

Commissioner Peirce launched a response to the bulletin the identical day. She wrote, “My concern isn’t with the accounting dedication itself, which can be acceptable, however with the way in which the change is being made,” which she characterised as 

“Yet one more manifestation of the Securities and Change Fee’s scattershot and inefficient method to crypto.”

Peirce’s first objection to the bulletin was its timing, because the bulletin cites an October 2020 Report of the Lawyer Normal, which in flip cites info from 2018. SEC workers has been reviewing statements offered by the businesses in query the entire time because the 2020 report, Peirce famous.

Commissioner Peirce additionally identified that the bulletin “doesn’t acknowledge the Fee’s personal position in creating the authorized and regulatory dangers that justify this accounting remedy” by not offering regulatory and authorized readability. Recognizing its personal position in the issue “could be acceptable,” Peirce mentioned.

She famous that the steering is narrowly focused and extremely particular, and it reads as if the steering have been enforceable. However, as a workers assertion, the bulletin isn’t enforceable. “If we are attempting to encourage corporations to enter our public markets, we should embrace a extra deliberate method to altering guidelines—one which entails consulting with affected events,” Peirce concluded.