Big Four Accounting Firm PwC Releases a Crypto Auditing Tool

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – one of the Big Four professional advisory, tax, and regulatory services providers – rolls out new auditing tool for cryptocurrencies. PwC has developed ‘Halo’, a crypto auditing tool that provides assurance services and clear guidelines to its growing collection of clients engaging in cryptocurrency activities.

Halo is a complete auditing package that provides a number of services to peers engaged in cryptocurrency transactions. Previously, Linda Pawczuk from Deloitte (another Big Four firm) said that “there are no rules” in crypto auditing at present; PwC’s ‘Halo’ brought the firm step ahead of the other major accounting firms.

PwC, that ranks as the second largest professional services firm in the world, has announced in their official press release that the company has launched an updated auditing solution for clients who are engaged in cryptocurrency transactions. According to the press release, the new version of ‘Halo’ will support eight main cryptocurrencies that include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond, Litecoin, Ethereum, ERC20 – OAX token and Ripple. The auditing solution ‘Halo’ currently offers thorough details of the clients’ crypto holding, tracking transactions on the blockchain to “independent, substantive evidence needed to establish ownership of cryptocurrency.”

The official press release says that the Halo solution can:

1. Provide independent, substantive evidence of the “private key and public address pairing” which is one of the pieces needed to establish ownership of cryptocurrency;
2. Securely interrogate the blockchain to independently and reliably gather corroborating information about blockchain transactions and balances.’

Tax Auditing of Cryptocurrency Is Still Vague

Auditing cryptocurrencies with multiple perspectives can be a grueling task as there are no clear guidelines and regulations, especially when it comes to taxes and a few other regulatory aspects. According to the press release, the company is working with clients for whom they are not auditing and helping them to overcome various challenges associated with implementing blockchain and cryptocurrency.

James Chalmers, PwC’s Global Assurance Leader, said:

“It is important as companies continue to digitize we, as auditors, keep up with technology changes in the market, continue to develop audit tools that meet the needs of emerging technologies and serve the changing and developing demands of our stakeholders.”

All-Big four are currently working on auditing large crypto companies that include crypto exchanges and ICO projects; however, not a decent level of satisfaction has been witnessed until now. Ernst and Young is the largest competitor of PwC as it has a strong interest in crypto auditing, and already released a tax tool for cryptocurrency transactions.

Whether or not PwC will launch the crypto auditing solution ‘Halo’ in all 157 countries it operates in is still unclear.