Auditchain – Decentralized Continuous Auditing & Reporting
Self-auditing state of a distributed ledger and the validation of transactions frst occurred on January 4, 2009 with the launch of the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain. Continuous audit is evolving in theory and practice. Its practice is limited mainly to internal reporting controls. The application of jurisdictionally compliant accounting treatment to transactions and reporting system risk controls occurring in most business processes is now theoretically possible concurrently within and subject to a decentralized continuous audit environment pursuant to SSAE 18 and IASE 3402 standards through the use of confgurable “Ricardian” type smart contracts. Such contracts, as proposed in this paper, do not hold custody of value but instead execute commands for how legal conditions and value are treated based on a fxed or evolving arrangement. Auditchain proposes to embody an ecosystem that includes a blockchain protocol and an open source library of accounting smart contracts sufc...