Auditing cloud-based blockchain accounting systems

In this research, we often refer to Nakamoto’s (2008) seminal paper, ‘‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,’’ to consider his proposed abstracted characteristics and how auditors could look at companies’ transactions interfacing to a private/semi-private blockchain with Nakamoto’s general characteristics and address the related audit domain for such transactions. We then take these design requirements for auditors and, using design science research (DSR), we consider the transaction processing and contracting contexts that match those requirements in permissioned blockchains.The blockchains discussed in this paper would typically be business-to-business or business-to-consumer, private or semi-private, and residing in either a private, semi-private, or public cloud. Those blockchains will each have their own design and operational procedures, including validation procedures (the miners). We consider the audit issues of data reliability, data security, and transaction transparency in accounting transactions that lend themselves to a permissioned blockchain as well as other contextual issues.