FASB rules ‘eliminate the poor optics’ that shied firms from crypto: Analyst

cointelegraph.com:

The United States Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new rules for crypto accounting will eliminate the “poor optics” that plagued companies holding digital assets, according to analysts from Berenberg Capital.

On Sept. 6, the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) approved new rules for cryptocurrencies with regard to how companies report the fair value of their holdings on their balance sheets.

In a follow-up note, Berenberg’s senior equity research analyst Mark Palmer argued that changes would be particularly beneficial for companies such as MicroStrategy, which will soon be able to report their digital asset holdings each quarter without having to realize impairment losses.

“The change should help MicroStrategy and other companies that hold digital assets to eliminate the poor optics that have been created by impairment losses under the rules that the FASB has had in place,” Palmer wrote.

Since it started accumulating Bitcoin in August 2020, MicroStrategy has racked up $2.23 billion in cumulative impairment losses.

Moreover, some of the quarterly reports the company has released during the past three years have included sizeable impairment losses on its BTC holdings that reflected downward moves in the asset’s price.

This led to negative news coverage of the firm and its reports, “giving the impression that the company’s inherent value had been negatively impacted when such was not the case,” said Palmer.

Under the new rules, which will go into effect in 2025, firms that hold crypto will be able to report those holdings at fair value. Therefore, their quarterly reports will reflect the current values of the assets, including any price rebounds.

Currently, impairment losses must be included and cannot be