Bringing Trust to the Digital Asset Ecosystem

The digital asset ecosystem is rapidly evolving, and trust is critical in shaping the future of these innovations.

While the use of digital assets at U.S. public companies remains relatively limited, their prevalence in certain segments of the financial system is accelerating. In an analysis of 10-Ks, the CAQ found that 9% of S&P 500 companies mentioned digital asset-related information in their 2024 filings (filed in 2025). Our research has indicated that more than half of those companies are in the financial services sector; the remainder span across industries as companies are beginning to explore new opportunities with digital assets.

More recently, in our Fall 2025 Audit Partner Pulse Survey, 22% of audit partners indicated that companies in their primary industry sector have exposure to digital assets (up from 11% reported in Spring 2025). We are also seeing an increasing number of digital asset exchanged-traded funds (ETFs), reflecting growing interest in this asset class from investors.

At the same time, regulatory frameworks for digital assets are still emerging. Congress recently passed legislation establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins (the GENIUS Act) and is now focused on passing a broader digital asset market structure bill. Regulatory agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have prioritized providing clarity regarding their oversight of digital assets, including the application of securities law to specific types of digital asset transactions.

This is all happening at a time of price volatility in the digital asset markets, highlighting the importance of market participants having the information that they need to make informed investment decisions. At the CAQ, we know that auditors have a critical role to play in the flow of reliable information to stakeholders for decision-making. Our latest publication, The Role of the Auditor in Digital Assets: Present and Future, explores the current digital assets landscape, why auditors are well-positioned to meet stakeholder needs, and what the future of trust could look like.

Challenges in an Evolving Ecosystem

As the digital asset ecosystem matures, so are the business models of companies engaging with digital assets. The use of digital assets varies from company to company and many different types of companies support a robust digital asset ecosystem, ranging from companies that hold digital assets for investment purposes, companies that participate in digital asset mining and staking activities, companies that issue digital assets (like stablecoins), and companies that provide digital asset-related services including providing custody solutions, operating exchanges, and providing staking as a service. Additionally, we are seeing some financial entities begin to explore tokenization of financial instruments.

Companies face unique risks depending on their use of digital assets, but there are some universal challenges that cut across the digital asset ecosystem. In our Fall 2025 Audit Partner Survey, audit partners identified regulatory uncertainty and a lack of expertise as key challenges facing companies that use digital assets for investment, operational, or transactional purposes. Additionally, we continue to see focus from digital asset market participants on transparency, including the information needs of investors, customers, and other stakeholders, and safeguarding of digital assets.

As the digital asset ecosystem continues to mature, it will be important for companies to consider how to provide increased trust and transparency for stakeholders on these key topics. As companies explore enhanced disclosure, public company auditors can play an important role in enhancing the reliability of information and mitigating potential information imbalances between external and internal stakeholders.

Audits and attestation engagements are already well-established mechanisms for building trust in financial and non-financial information reported by companies, and these services can be extended to digital asset market participants.

The Role of the Auditor

Auditors are long-standing experts in verifying information reported by public companies, and their dedication to bringing trust to decision-useful information is why the U.S. is the gold standard for audit quality.

Auditors have a proven history of applying their rigor and expertise beyond financial reporting to emerging areas of our economy. Increasingly, auditors are being called upon to provide assurance on emerging topics like climate and cybersecurity.

In the digital asset ecosystem, auditors are already playing an important role in enhancing trust in company-reported information. One example of this is the requirement in the GENIUS Act for permitted payment stablecoin issuers to obtain an examination, performed by an auditor, of their monthly reserve reporting.

Auditors bring several unique strengths:

• Deep expertise in understanding business processes. Auditors are skilled at understanding various business processes and assessing and responding to risks within those processes.
• Experience in reporting on adherence to standards and frameworks. Auditors have extensive experience reporting on management’s assertions about compliance with various standards and frameworks.
• Compliance with independence and rigorous professional standards. Auditors follow strict independence rules and adhere to continuing professional education, ethics, and experience requirements.

Just as they verify a company’s financial information, auditors’ tried-and-true assurance brings clarity to emerging disclosure areas impacting the capital markets.

The Future of Trust

Digital asset attestation engagements continue to evolve to meet stakeholder needs. As companies and retail customers increasingly become involved in the digital asset ecosystem and engage the services of digital asset service providers, those customers are seeking greater trust and transparency in service providers’ operations.

Currently, several prominent digital asset companies that provide custody services to customers obtain Service Organization and Controls (SOC) 1 Type 2 reports, which are available to institutional customers and provide information relevant to a customer’s system of internal control. However, these reports aren’t available to individual retail customers. As the digital asset ecosystem continues to expand, there may come a point when retail customers desire greater trust and transparency about a digital asset service provider’s internal controls. At some point in the future, we may see new types of attestation engagements emerge to meet this need.

The profession is ready to engage with standard-setters, companies, and users of attestation reports to ensure that future attestation engagements deliver a clear and reliable picture of digital asset activities. It is important that future attestation engagements are clearly defined and that there is an appropriate framework enabling the performance of consistent and high-quality engagements.

This is the auditor’s role: applying decades of expertise, rigor, and independence to emerging topics, contributing to continued innovation and growth in the U.S. economy. The CAQ will continue to monitor the evolving digital asset landscape and the profession’s role in building trust in these innovations.

Explore the Full Resource: To see our full analysis of the evolving digital asset landscape, download the report here.