Financial Accounting Classification of Cryptocurrency

Currently, a large range of opinions exists regarding the appropriate classification and regulation of cryptocurrency. From the legal perspective, some suggest that cryptocurrency investments are too speculative. As a result of this, it is suggested that cryptocurrency should be more heavily regulated. This would be done to prevent speculators from losing vast wealth. Other legal analysts suggest that an increasing cryptocurrency regulation would have a detrimental effect on the state of cryptocurrency, and its use would cause long-term problems. From the accounting perspective, opinions vary. Some suggest an accounting classification that would make cryptocurrency cash equivalents; others suggest an accounting classification that would render cryptocurrency an intangible asset with an indefinite useful life. The “big 4” accounting firms that include Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, and KPMG recommend that cryptocurrency should be classified as an intangible asset with an indefinite useful life. However, other companies currently using cryptocurrency through the general operations of the business have decided to classify it differently. The legal perspectives and the accounting perspectives will be analyzed to determine appropriate regulations for cryptocurrency and an appropriate classification for cryptocurrency. The results will show that cryptocurrency should be classified as an intangible asset with an indefinite useful life for accounting purposes and as property for tax purposes

UniquID: A Quest to Reconcile Identity Access Management and the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has caused a revolutionary paradigm shift in computer networking. After decades of human-centered routines, where devices were merely tools that enabled human beings to authenticate themselves and perform activities, we are now dealing with a device-centered paradigm: the devices themselves are actors, not just tools for people. Conventional identity access management (IAM) frameworks were not designed to handle the challenges of IoT. Trying to use traditional IAM systems to reconcile heterogeneous devices and complex federations of online services (e.g., IoT sensors and cloud computing solutions) adds a cumbersome architectural layer that can become hard to maintain and act as a single point of failure. In this paper, we propose UniquID, a blockchain-based solution that overcomes the need for centralized IAM architectures while providing scalability and robustness. We also present the experimental results of a proof-of-concept UniquID enrolment network, and we discuss two different use-cases that show the considerable value of a blockchain-based IAM.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Dynamically Adjusting the Mining Capacity in Cryptocurrency with Binary Blockchain

Many cryptocurrencies rely on Blockchain for its operation. Blockchain serves as a public ledger where all the completed transactions can be looked up. To place transactions in the Blockchain, a mining operation must be performed. However, due to a limited mining capacity, the transaction confirmation time is increasing. To mitigate this problem many ideas have been proposed, but they all come with own challenges. We propose a novel parallel mining method that can adjust the mining capacity dynamically depending on the congestion level. It does not require an increase in the block size or a reduction of the block confirmation time. The proposed scheme can increase the number of parallel blockchains when the mining congestion is experienced, which is especially effective under DDoS attack situation. We describe how and when the Blockchain is split or merged, how to solve the imbalanced mining problem, and how to adjust the difficulty levels and rewards. We then show the simulation results comparing the performance of binary blockchain and the traditional single blockchain