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Rush to Bitcoin? Not so fast, say keepers of corporate coffers
- Bluestein 6y ago> U.S. trade body, companies apply existing FASB guidance on the accounting for “intangible assets”, which usually includes intellectual property, brand recognition or goodwill. > Under these rules, companies other than investment firms or broker-dealers cannot book gains in the value of holdings should the price of bitcoin rise - but must write down their investment as an impairment charge if it falls. This explains a lot ...
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThat’s just the guidance that some companies were using to play it safe. It’s not written in law that this is the way it must be done, because Bitcoin wasn’t around when the laws were written. I would expect to see companies like Tesla try to recognize their holdings as currency instead of intangible assets. The bigger reason most companies have no interest in holding Bitcoin is that it’s extremely volatile. If a non-crypto company held Bitcoin and then the value of Bitcoin crashed, the CEO would be on the way out the door for gambling away the balance sheet. Despite the headlines, inflation isn’t destroying the value of cash at a rapid rate. A company might spend more on Bitcoin exchange fees and paying a company to keep their Bitcoin safe (not trivial at the corporate scale) than they would gain by offsetting inflation if the price of Bitcoin was stable.
- Bluestein 6y ago> I would expect to see companies like Tesla try to recognize their holdings as currency instead of intangible assets. Curious to see how that plays out. It'd make sense.-