Ridha Mohanad Al-Salman (1), Hashim Haydar Al-Sarraf (2), Ilham Abdul Hussein (3), Karrar Saleem Hameedi (4)
General Background: The rapid expansion of digital assets and financial technology has created new challenges for accounting measurement, auditing practices, and financial reporting systems. Specific Background: Traditional accounting approaches often face difficulties in recognizing, measuring, and disclosing digital assets due to their unique technological and economic characteristics. Knowledge Gap: Despite growing interest in digital assets, limited empirical evidence exists regarding the combined role of financial technology and electronic auditing in developing accounting measurement practices. Aims: This study examines the role of financial technology and electronic auditing in developing accounting measurement for digital assets. Results: The findings indicate strong positive relationships among financial technology, electronic auditing, and accounting measurement development. Regression analysis shows that financial technology and electronic auditing significantly contribute to accounting measurement development, with financial technology demonstrating the stronger contribution. The model explains 70.5% of the variation in accounting measurement development. Novelty: The study integrates financial technology and electronic auditing within a single framework to explain improvements in accounting measurement for digital assets. Implications: The findings support the development of specialized accounting standards, advanced electronic auditing systems, digital infrastructure, and professional training programs to improve the measurement, disclosure, and auditing of digital assets.
Keywords: Financial Technology, Electronic Auditing, Digital Assets, Accounting Measurement, Blockchain Accounting
Key Findings Highlights
Financial technology showed the strongest contribution to measurement development.
Audit digitalization supported greater data verification and transparency.
The proposed model explained a substantial proportion of variance in reporting practices.
The contemporary corporate environment has experienced a fundamental upheaval in recent years owing to the rapid advancement of digitalization.. This is because the value of an item is no longer solely determined by its physical capital, such as land and traditional assets, but rather by the increasing junctures between value creation (The creation of innovative products and services through digital technology).
and corporate valorization, or establishing competitive advantage using businesses to create people. New types of intangible assets (such cryptocurrencies, digital platforms, electronic wallets, and big data) have emerged in the current era of the digital economy, posing fundamental challenges to traditional accounting concepts regarding recognition, measurement, and disclosure.
Therefore, even this reality serves as a significant motivator for a methodological review of the accounting measurement pillars in order to thematize their alignment with the digital paradigm. It also facilitates the discussion of whether FinTech tools and E-Audit mechanisms could enhance comparability, transparency, and reliability. The significance of this change has increased in light of recent advancements in standard-setting. With the release of Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2023-08 in December 2023, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) established a distinct accounting subtopic for cryptocurrency assets (ASC 350-60) and required that organizations assess these assets at fair value and acknowledge the fluctuations in fair value in net income, including either no assistance or limited valuation-rights-based measures, effective for fiscal years commencing after December 15, 2024(FASB, 2023). In contrast, the 2019 IFRIC Agenda Decision, which instructed organizations to apply IAS 38 or IAS 2 based on intent with regard to holding of intangible assets, continues to be the foundation of IFRS Standards.
The research issue is the absence of a specific standard-setting regime for digital assets, which has resulted in notable measurement inconsistencies among businesses, as well as disparate measurement approaches and implications for understanding entity market cap stakeholders. Classifying these digital assets under the umbrella of current international norms presents another unique challenge because highly volatile, decentralized, and openly tradable assets are usually not accommodated by traditional measurement model bases like historical cost and fair value. The study seeks to address the following question in this context:
This study is significant because it highlights the irrelevance of conventional measurement methods and shows that finding an accounting solution for digital assets is not only related to their identification but also represents a more serious dilemma. This is significant from a practical standpoint since more advanced techniques like FinTech and E-Audit could be used to enhance the qualitative aspects of financial reporting's dependability and verifiability. In view of recent advances in the standard-setting industry, especially after ASU 2023-08, which represents a shift from the (cost less impairment) model to changes being accounted for fair value through profit or loss, that research becomes even more crucial.
Hypotheses 0 H₀: The development of accounting measurement techniques for digital assets is statistically significantly influenced by financial technology and electronic auditing. It generates two sub-hypotheses:
• Hypothesis 1 (H₁): Financial technology has a statistically significant impact on the development of accounting measurement techniques for digital assets.
• H₂: Electronic auditing has a statistically significant impact on the development of accounting measurement techniques for digital assets.
Descriptive-analytical research methodology was employed. There are 1,583 responders, including accountants, internal and external auditors, accounting scholars, and employees of financial and regulatory organizations. Due to their backgrounds in oversight and accounting, this study used a purposeful sample of these pertinent individuals. The research tool, a five-point Likert scale questionnaire, was divided into four components. Expert reviewers were used to demonstrate the validity, while Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to assess the retest reliability. Analyses Descriptive statistics, reliability testing, and hypothesis tests (Pearson coefficient, linear regression, F-test, and t-test) were used to analyze the data using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
In recent accounting and financial literature, digital assets and cryptocurrencies have sparked scholarly discussions on a number of topics, including fair value applications, accounting measurement concerns, the role of blockchain and financial technology in forward-looking auditing, and financial disclosure. An outline of the most significant earlier studies, arranged by date, is provided below:
Upon examination of the aforementioned, it is clear that most prior research has focused either on the technical dimension (blockchain and continuous auditing) or the standard-setting aspect (i.e., accounting treatment of cryptocurrencies under IFRS/GAAP) without synthesizing the two perspectives. The present study seeks to address this deficiency by:
There is a great deal of variation in practices due to the absence of a specific framework for standard-setting. According to the literature, some businesses categorize cryptocurrencies as either inventory in accordance with IAS 2 or an intangible asset pursuant to IAS 38 because they lack a separate standard under IFRS (Shaheen et al., 2025: 103). The IFRS Interpretations Committee Agenda Decision from June 2019 addressed recent questions about how cryptocurrencies should be treated in financial statements It indicated that cryptocurrencies holdings do not qualify as cash or a financial asset, and default is governed by IAS 38; if held for sale in normal operation of business, IAS 2 is applicable.
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This recognition directly affects judgment, especially in light of the comparatively lax rules currently in place regarding ownership and physical presence of the digital asset, which would undermine one of the qualitative features, namely verification (Hijazi, 2023: 561; Mohamed, 2023: 650). Furthermore, despite price fluctuations in sharp edges caused by speculation, demand exceeding supply (Grant Thornton, 2025), or the application of fair valuation under IAS 38, the historical cost model fails to replicate the true value, making it impossible to create an active market for every cryptocurrency.
Based on technical publications published by major international audit firms (KPMG, 2024; Deloitte, 2023) and an official FASB pronouncement (FASB, 2023), the researcher provided a well-collated table outlining some of the key standard-setting differences between these two international frameworks post-issuance of ASU 2023-08 to enhance this section:
Table (A): IFRS vs US GAAP Readiness in Handling Crypto Assets (Scholarly Contribution)
It serves as a roadmap for addressing the gaps in current paradigms. The umbrella term Financial Technology (FinTech) can be used to address conventional questions and problems. Transaction recording and real-time revaluation have been transformed by blockchain and big data technology (Bonsu, 2025: 15). Transparent and instantaneous ownership monitoring is made possible by blockchain technology, a distributed ledger recognized in almost every other field (Tufael, 2025: 140). It closes this information gap and increases the verifiability of goods produced by transforming the industry to move through Continuous Measurement and offering platforms for trading that serve a price discovery function (Ojha et al., 2023: 114).
According to the “Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting” (IASB Conceptual Framework, 2018), the researcher offers the following classification, connecting each FinTech instrument (i.e., its categories) with its direct impact on the qualitative aspects of accounting information.
Table (B): Classification of FinTech Tools and Their Effect on Information Characteristics (Scholarly Contribution)
Because digital assets are unique, the auditing framework will need to change. Since the traditional examination is no longer being conducted, the emphasis on the concept of Electronic Auditing (E-Audit) and consistent auditing has become a spontaneous response to advanced development (Farras et al., 2025: 506). Instead of utilizing a sample, big data analytics enables auditors to examine every transaction, increasing the possibility of finding anomalous patterns (Huang et al., 2022: 138). This shows that the oversight and audit quality are directly tied to the measurement. Therefore, integrating electronic auditing into the measuring framework is thought to be one of the pertinent approximations to professional best practices in accounting to improve its qualitative features like faithful representation and verifiability.
Financial technology functions as an information system that effectively incorporates technological advancements to improve financial operations, and electronic auditing is an integrative relationship that ultimately focuses on the unmet need of accounting in digital asset measurement techniques. Eight axes can be used to visualize this integration:
By converting the periodic measurement model based on historical cost into a continuous measurement model, the scope of financial technology aids in reshaping the accounting cycle for digital assets. Second, because the fair value model is based on actual, verifiable pricing, it may be applied in its purest form thanks to blockchain technology's connection to trading platforms that provide real-time market data (Ojha et al., 2023: 114).
No technique for accounting measurement can be created without a digital regulatory system intended to verify and enforce the integrity of data supplied into valuation models. This is where Electronic Auditing comes in, using big data analytics to examine electronic wallets to verify true ownership and evaluate each transaction related to those digital assets. The risk of overstating reported fair values is reduced by switching from traditional auditing to real-time auditing (Huang et al., 2022: 138).
There is a high correlation between measurement quality and oversight quality, according to the applied literature. The capacity to apply precise accounting standards supported by reliable electronic auditing techniques clearly demonstrates an increase in the organization's market value. Therefore, it is more or less professional to include electronic auditing in the measuring framework in order to provide qualitative aspects of accounting data, particularly verifiability (Chen, 2023: 35–36).
In order to obtain more accurate estimates of economic value, a FinTech system must borrow artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things due to the credibility crisis of traditional measurement models for digital assets, which is demonstrated by the various ways to classify these assets (inventory or intangible asset). The absence of practical guidelines for proof of existence and ownership led to the development of electronic auditing (Hijazi, 2023: 561).
Due to their intrinsic volatility, digital assets and cryptocurrencies carry a significant risk of material misstatement when measured using conventional methods. Financial technology uses artificial intelligence algorithms to forecast volatility and provide more objective and prudent fair value valuations (Shehata, 2023: 383), while electronic auditing allows for ongoing security monitoring of distributed ledgers to reduce the risk of breaches or manipulation (Chen, 2023: 35).
The adoption of smart contracts is seen as a turning point in the convergence of auditing and accounting. As soon as predetermined criteria are satisfied, these contracts automatically initiate accounting transactions and alter the values of digital assets, minimizing human intervention and subjective assessments in measurement (Appelbaum et al., 2017: 23). In order to ensure that measures are hitting into financial statement policies, Auditing Online Research examines the regulatory programming code and algorithms (Algorithm Audits) either before or during operation (Turki, 2024: 376).
The knowledge gap between investors and management due to technical complexity is one of the main issues with accounting for digital assets. FinTech platforms are used to reduce information asymmetry (Ojha et al., 2023: 114). Electronic and continuous auditing systems help extract risk indicators (Red Flags) based on big data, which improves the comprehensibility and comparability of accounting measurement outputs (Yousef et al., 2025: 381).
Electronic auditing should be used as a prerequisite to assist assurance professionals in evaluating management's adherence to applied accounting policies in light of this disparity in the accounting treatments of digital assets (Abdo, 2022: 478). Financial technology creates the infrastructure necessary for the accurate implementation of these policies, which eventually results in the issuance of uniform specialized accounting standards (Farras et al., 2025: 506).
Table (1): Demographic and Profession Description of Study Sample
Analysis: Table (1) shows the study sample's diversity in terms of science and profession. The accounting specialty is very prevalent at 64.62%, with diploma and master's degrees accounting for 32.56% and 32.56%, respectively. Regarding the type of work, academics and accountants were also the most referenced (a total of >79%), giving the answers scientific and practical credibility. The majority of experience (58.91%) fell into the young category (less than 5 years), indicating that the sample was sufficiently capable of adopting and using the cutting-edge digital approaches under investigation.
To evaluate the internal consistency in determining the validity of the questionnaire as a measurement tool, a Cronbach's Alpha test was combined with a Split-Half test:
Table (2): Reliability Coefficients (Cronbach's Alpha & Split-Half)
Analysis: Cronbach's Alpha values ranged from 0.890 to 0.907, and all predicted reliability coefficients were over the statistically accepted cut-off of 0.70. Split-Half and Spearman-Brown coefficient results, which supported the study instrument's stability—that is, its high degree of reliability and internal consistency—confirmed these.
Table (3): Variance Analysis of the Study Axes Items
Analysis: The variance values were often modest, as Table (3) illustrates. The tenth item on the third axis had the lowest dispersion value (0.405), indicating a high degree of consensus. The top values were found to be within acceptable bounds, finalizing the homogeneity of the sample responses.
Table (4): Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix of the Axes
Analysis: Despite having a positive slope, all axes scored higher than 3.9 on a scale of 5, indicating agreement. Almost all variables have a strong and significant positive relationship with one another, according to the correlation matrix. The strongest relationship is found between Financial Technology and Electronic Auditing (0.838), followed by Financial Technology and Accounting Measurement (0.811).
To determine how Financial Technology and Electronic Auditing (Independent Variable) affect Accounting Measurement Development (Dependent Variable), use the best suitable method:
Table (5): Multiple Linear Regression Analysis Results
The model's overall importance and predictive performance are indicated by its value of 150.37 and significance level of 0.000. Financial technology and electronic auditing can account for 70.5% of changes in accounting measurement developing digital assets, according to the coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.705). Compared to the immediate impact of electronic auditing (Beta = 0.398), the association of financial technology (Beta = 0.494) was comparatively higher. The central hypothesis of this study, which asserts that financial technology and electronic auditing have a major influence on the development of accounting measurement techniques, can be accepted based on the prior conception.
The following recommendations could be made in light of the study's findings:
To bolster the aforementioned, a researcher suggests four research fields that would be an extension of this work and are probably composed of academic contributions:
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