In an interview conducted at the NFT.NYC conference in New York, David Berlind engages in a conversation with Amy Kalnoki, the COO and co-founder of Bitwave. Bitwave is essentially an accounting solution that bridges the gap between an organization's traditional financial recordkeeping systems (e.g., NetSuite, Quickbooks, etc.) and its implementations of blockchain. The net effect, Kalnoki claims, is an automated consolidation of all financials (fiat and cryptocurrency) into one single source of truth in a way that's designed to simplify both financial recordkeeping and tax compliance. This arrangement overcomes the inability of traditional financial systems to cope with the complexities of cryptocurrency recordkeeping. 

Creating a single source of truth when public blockchains are involved is a highly nuanced process. Different organizations engage with different public blockchains for a variety of applications that involve different financial patterns. For example, whereas some organizations transact in certain cryptocurrencies as a part of their e-commerce workflows, other organizations rely on a public blockchain for non-payment-related applications that require crypto-based payment of a blockchain's service fees. In those and other use cases, organizations end up keeping some amount of crypto in their treasuries, and the tax implications connected to that activity are non-trivial. According to Kalnoki, it's not just fungible token activity that businesses must keep an eye on. Now, with businesses increasingly discovering the transformative power of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to drive new or improved business outcomes – Kalnoki cites ticketing and gaming as two such applications – trying to track all blockchain-related financials using extemporaneous methods is not an option (which explains why Kalnoki was speaking at a conference about NFTs). 

The conversation shifts to regulatory challenges, focusing on IRS regulation 6050I, which aims to treat crypto transactions over $10,000 as cash equivalents, necessitating detailed reporting. It's a rare example of where a small shred of regulatory clarity exists such that businesses (and solution providers like Bitwave) can work with blockchain in observance of certain legal guardrails. But a dearth of such regulatory clarity is still problematic for most American businesses. As the gears of blockchain law and policy-making have essentially ground to a halt in Washington, DC, organizations are holding, back on their blockchain applications for fear of waking up one morning on the wrong side of the law.  Kalnoki acknowledges the need for more clarity in order to foster compliance and, ultimately, innovation. 

Finally, Kalnoki invites viewers to attend Bitwave's Enterprise Digital Assets Summit in Nashville (July 2024), where the conversation will address the challenges and solutions to business adoption of blockchain amid regulatory uncertainty.

To watch the video version of this podcast or read its full-text transcript, go to:
https://blockchainjournal.com/interview/bitwave-looks-ease-accounting-complexities-arise-enterprise-adoption-nfts

The video can also be watched on Blockchain Journal's YouTube Channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nHeqppkXa8

For information about Bitcoin2024, please visit:
https://bitcoin2024.b.tc/2024

Bitwave Looks to Ease Accounting Complexities That Arise From Enterprise Adoption of NFTs

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