Chapter 4: Public Value Accounting and Blockchains

The aim of this chapter is to examine the pertinence of public value accounting for blockchain technologies (particularly cryptocurrencies) as well as the reciprocal pertinence of blockchains for public value accounting. It posits that public value actors have an important role to play in co-creating value in the digital economy, where public managers offer three sources of accounting-based public value for citizen-driven digital innovation: ex ante, ex post, and ipso facto. The ex ante public value accounting occurs in the regulation and oversight functions of public managers, who deploy accounting to ensure citizen financial protection. This chapter uses the accounting for reserves of Tether, the third-largest cryptocurrency, as the example in that regard. The ex post public value accounting occurs in the prosecution and restitution roles of public managers, who restore public value by taking actions against cryptocurrency miscreants and agents of disvalue. This chapter uses the accounting and prosecutorial action against FTX, a now defunct cryptoexchange, in that regard. This chapter further argues that decentralised distributed ledger technologies ipso facto offer an inherent form of accounting, albeit one that is complex, nebulous, and yet resilient. In taking these three forms into consideration, this chapter argues that all agents of public value can co-create and co-preserve value in the digital economy through a multistakeholder effort.