The Accountant Quits Podcast

All of you will be familiar with a double entry accounting framework, the bookkeeping system where all debits must be equal to the amounts entered as credits. But even if your accounts are balanced, that does not necessarily mean the reporting figures are free from misstatements, whether due to fraud or error. Which is the reason why audits are required. Triple Entry Accounting allows for a shared ledger and with the advent of blockchain, this shared ledger can now be trusted due to the inherent features of cryptography. When I first read Triple Entry Accounting,I had the firm conviction that if what this accounting framework promises in theory could be applied in practice, it can be set to revolutionize the future of bookkeeping. In this episode, we discuss; The limitations of the current double entry accounting system; What triple entry accounting really means and how blockchain has made the idea viable; Use cases and examples of companies building business applications using the framework of triple entry accounting; Challenges and solutions to accelerate adoption of triple entry accounting; And many more... My guest for the episode, Juan Ignacio Ibañez is the Centre Administrator and a Research Associate at the Centre for Blockchain Technologies of the University College of London.  Juan has spent the last few years studying various aspects of triple-entry accounting with blockchain, and has co-written several papers on the subject matter. The papers are; The Efficiency of Single Truth: Triple-entry Accounting REA, Triple-Entry Accounting and Blockchain: Converging Paths to Shared Ledger Systems Triple-entry Accounting, Blockchain and Next of Kin: Towards a Standardization of Ledger Terminology You will find all the shownotes, transcripts and links to the episode on the website of The Accountant Quits.

With the launch of Ethereum in 2014, for the first time ever, we could program decentralized applications that run on a blockchain. But in order to become mainstream, their inherent security is of paramount importance. If poorly coded, these smart contracts are vulnerable to hacking. With a significant amount of funds locked into these smart contracts, the losses can be irreversible for the investors. One way to mitigate the risk of having smart contracts exploited by hackers is by having smart contracts audits. Smart contracts can be transformative but the only way to get there is if people know with certainty that money cannot be stolen from their smart contract. Stefan Beyer is a consultant in Distributed Ledger Technology and Cryptography focusing on blockchain architectures and smart contract security and has under his belt more than 100 smart contract audits. Stefan has recently co-founded Oak Security, a company offering security auditing services for a number of blockchains, with a special focus on third-generation blockchains such as the Cosmos, Terra, and Polkadot ecosystems. In this episode, we discuss; Smart contract audits and common mistakes for developers writing smart contracts; Planning a smart contract audit and how should the client prepare; The evolution of smart contracts and new concerns faced by auditors; Vulnerabilities of smart contracts leading to hacks; Where to start to become a smart contract auditor and blockchain programming languages available; And many more... For shownotes/links to the episode, please visit www.theaccountantquits.com 

With more and more companies looking to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an alternative to traditional investments like bonds, stocks and so forth, an important consideration for these companies involves the risks and controls in place for owning such assets. One of these significant risks lies in custody. Will the company keep custody of the assets itself, or will it rely on third-party providers? Custody of cryptocurrencies requires a new kind of infrastructure, and connectivity to the internet is the intersection where solutions for custody diverge. For Episode 2, I have the pleasure to have Lior Lamesh, the co-founder of GK8. GK8 is a Tel-Aviv based blockchain cybersecurity company which provides an enterprise-grade custody platform that enables financial institutions to execute their blockchain transactions risk free from cyber attacks. To achieve this, the company has developed the world’s first true air-gapped vault with no internet connectivity, or in other words an offline system for transacting cryptocurrencies. The company’s slogan speaks for itself - You can’t hack what you can’t reach. Lior earned his expertise in cybersecurity while serving in Israel’s elite cyber team in charge of protecting the country’s strategic assets from state-level hackers, reporting directly to the Prime Minister's Office. An expert in both cyber-attacks and cyber-defense, Lior leads the development of GK8’s and his vision is to make hacking private keys and blockchain assets impossible. Enjoy the episode..

To give you a short yet compelling glimpse of Monica’s faith in blockchain as an emerging technology, after 20 years of being the CEO of Strate, the central securities depository of South Africa and putting the country on the map as a trusted digitised financial market ecosystem, she resigned. Why ? Well, long story short - The executive board of Strate didn’t share her vision into the magic of blockchain. With a background in accounting, Monica started her career in auditing and from an early stage was involved in developing accounting standards for the Chartered Accountancy profession. Today Monica is the South African Lead for Consensys, a market leader in building blockchain based solutions, which was founded by none other than Joseph Lubin, one of the 8 co-founders of Ethereum. Monica is a also professor on blockchain at the University of Johannesburg, a board member of The Accounting Blockchain Coalition and board member of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). Monica’s career is a testament of someone who doesn't resist but adapts to change, and recognizes that intellectual curiosity is where one starts to reinvent themselves. In this episode, we will cover wide ranging topics around blockchain as a technology, its use cases in accounting and how accountants can start to educate themselves.