Is Bitcoin Really A Threat to Accountants?
Bitcoin Will Not Eliminate the Accounting Profession
Simply put, Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency and digital payment system. Although that is a very basic definition for the highly innovative technology, it is a good starting point.
In a society of technological advances and breakthroughs, it is very naïve to claim the accounting profession will be replaced by Bitcoin. There have been countless technological innovations whose existence threaten human jobs, but there is always one issue with that. Technology always needs a human to either explain, operate, or monitor it's use.
Bitcoin Will Become a Beneficial Tool
There is much more to an accountant's job description than posting transactions to a general ledger. Sure, there are accountants that do this on a daily basis, but within the profession there are several different types of accountants. There are auditors, tax preparers, financial advisors, and much more.
Accountants are asked to analyze and explain the importance and effects of financial information. Bitcoin encrypts, tracks, and records transactions. Simply put, bitcoin is an advanced technology that individually keeps a secure record of an elaborate general ledger.
My Perspective
Just as this article articulates, bitcoin will become an essential tool for an educated accountant. Accountants will have a trusted technology to analyze transactions in real-time. Since each bitcoin transaction is uniquely recorded, accountants will have the ability to precisely analyze transactions.
Due to the incredible amount of transactions accountants deal with, much of the information accountants use are based off of close estimates of numbers. Now that bitcoin enables accountants to analyze transactions precisely, they are much more capable of depicting the importance and future effects of the numbers they are analyzing and projecting.
Contrary to the common perspective that bitcoin will replace accountants, I believe bitcoin actually enables accountants to succeed in their field, and make them all the more important to their firms.
