Monica Singer on How can an Accountant prepare for a blockchain future
What We Discuss With Monica Singer
- The evolution of the internet from Web 1.0 (the internet of information), Web 2.0 (the internet of monopolies) to Web 3.0 (decentralized web)
- An overview of blockchain technology and how does it allow for peer to peer transactions without the middleman.
- Smart contracts and a practical example of their uses in the insurance industry.
- Triple entry accounting and how it allows all parties of a transactions to have the same real time records in their books.
- The limitations of the current accounting treatment for cryptocurrencies.
- The urgent need faced by accountants and auditors to become tech savvy (why will it be important to know the basics of reading a smart contract)
- With current talent gap for blockchain, how can accountants start to educate themselves
- And much more…
Shownotes
Blockchain as a technology
- Monica shares the story of why she resigned as CEO of Strate after 20 years, after reading the white paper of Bitcoin from Satoshi Nakamoto [4:40]
- With blockchain’s inherent features, Monica puts forward a new concept of the ‘many-eye’ principle as opposed to the traditional four-eye principle [6:34]
- Since auditors have no obligations to detect fraud from collusion of management, Monica sympathises with auditors by stating it’s not their fault, but rather the fault of the system [7:12]
- Monica provides an overview of the evolution of the internet from Web1.0 (the internet of information), Web 2.0 (internet controlled by monopolies) and Web 3.0 (the new decentralized web) [8:31]
- Monica lays out her vision that in the future, CEOs will be technology people, and not chartered accountants anymore. [13:45]
- When questioned with ‘What is a smart contract’, Monica provides a simple analogy to a vending machine [15:36]
- An application of a smart contract in insurance [16:02]
Use cases of blockchain in accounting
- Monica explains what is a triple entry accounting framework, and calls it a shared version of the truth [21:17]
- A real life example of how trade is being done with respect to supply chain, and how each party has to create separate accounts and reconcile their books [22:33]
- Monica points out that accounting bodies are moving slowly with respect to digital assets [26:55]
- The current accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies to be recognized as intangibles , and what are the downsides of this treatment? [28:27]
- How is Consensys helping companies implement blockchain? [30:38]
Education and lifelong learning
- To keep learning and growing, Monica shares her real life story of why she joined Consensys saying that ‘if you are most intelligent person in the room, you are in the wrong room’ [35:21]
- How did Monica become a professor at the University of Johannesburg despite not having a Phd [35:45]
- What are the barriers that women face to pursue a tech career ? [36:43]
- Advice for people who are interested to get into blockchain, but do not want to become coders [39:37]
- Monica recommends to choose an industry where you want to be in, because blockchain will be present in all industries [40:56]
- The launch of the European Tech School, where the emphasis is laid on practical and not theoretical aspects of blockchain [41:29]
- The barriers for cryptocurrencies to become mainstream are regulation clarity, taxes harmonization, … [43:55]
