IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bracre/v56y2024i2s0890838923001270.html

Auditing decentralized finance

Author

Listed:
  • Bhambhwani, Siddharth M.
  • Huang, Allen H.

Abstract

Decentralized finance (DeFi), which executes financial transactions using blockchain without an intermediary, has attracted over US$250 billion in total value locked (TVL) at its peak. However, little is known about how DeFi protocols assure users of the safety of their investments. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on DeFi audit services that check and verify the smart contracts underlying these protocols. Using data on 316 of the largest protocols, we find that those vetted by more smart contract auditors and by higher quality auditors have higher TVL and that these protocols have higher market capitalization (native token values). Using an event study approach, we document that TVL and token values significantly increase after a protocol's first audit, especially those involving a high-quality auditor. We also find that protocols with more auditors and higher audit quality exhibit a smaller drop in TVL and token values after the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, which reduced aggregate DeFi TVL by almost 65%. Overall, our findings suggest that DeFi users and investors perceive audits as providing assurance regarding the safety of their deposits and investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhambhwani, Siddharth M. & Huang, Allen H., 2024. "Auditing decentralized finance," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:56:y:2024:i:2:s0890838923001270
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2023.101270
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890838923001270
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bar.2023.101270?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yannis Bakos & Hanna Halaburda, 2022. "Overcoming the Coordination Problem in New Marketplaces via Cryptographic Tokens," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1368-1385, December.
    2. Michael Minnis, 2011. "The Value of Financial Statement Verification in Debt Financing: Evidence from Private U.S. Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 49(2), pages 457-506, May.
    3. Shen, Dehua & Urquhart, Andrew & Wang, Pengfei, 2019. "Does twitter predict Bitcoin?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 118-122.
    4. Brunnermeier, Markus & Abadi, Joseph, 2018. "Blockchain Economics," CEPR Discussion Papers 13420, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    5. Jiri Chod & Nikolaos Trichakis & S. Alex Yang, 2022. "Platform Tokenization: Financing, Governance, and Moral Hazard," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6411-6433, September.
    6. Gerald J. Lobo & Luc Paugam & Dana Zhang & Jean François Casta, 2017. "The Effect of Joint Auditor Pair Composition on Audit Quality: Evidence from Impairment Tests," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 118-153, March.
    7. Fabian Schär, 2021. "Decentralized Finance: On Blockchain- and Smart Contract-Based Financial Markets," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 103(2), pages 153-174, April.
    8. Igor Makarov & Antoinette Schoar, 2022. "Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance (DeFi)," NBER Working Papers 30006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Lin William Cong & Zhiguo He, 2019. "Blockchain Disruption and Smart Contracts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1754-1797.
    10. Evgeny Lyandres & Berardino Palazzo & Daniel Rabetti, 2022. "Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Success and Post-ICO Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 8658-8679, December.
    11. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100409, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Makarov, Igor & Schoar, Antoinette, 2020. "Trading and arbitrage in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 293-319.
    13. Jason Scharfman, 2023. "Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Fraud and Hacks: Part 2," Springer Books, in: The Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook, chapter 0, pages 97-110, Springer.
    14. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Matthieu Bouvard & Catherine Casamatta & Albert J. Menkveld, 2023. "Equilibrium Bitcoin Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 967-1014, April.
    15. Paul P Momtaz, 2020. "Initial Coin Offerings," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-30, May.
    16. Fisch, Christian & Momtaz, Paul P., 2020. "Institutional investors and post-ICO performance: an empirical analysis of investor returns in initial coin offerings (ICOs)," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    17. Gerry Tsoukalas & Brett Hemenway Falk, 2020. "Token-Weighted Crowdsourcing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3843-3859, September.
    18. Briola, Antonio & Vidal-Tomás, David & Wang, Yuanrong & Aste, Tomaso, 2023. "Anatomy of a Stablecoin’s failure: The Terra-Luna case," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    19. Mingcherng Deng & Tong Lu & Dan A. Simunic & Minlei Ye, 2014. "Do Joint Audits Improve or Impair Audit Quality?," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 52(5), pages 1029-1060, December.
    20. Ante, Lennart, 2023. "How Elon Musk's Twitter activity moves cryptocurrency markets," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PA).
    21. David Yermack, 2017. "Corporate Governance and Blockchains," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 7-31.
    22. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    23. Jiri Chod & Evgeny Lyandres, 2021. "A Theory of ICOs: Diversification, Agency, and Information Asymmetry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 5969-5989, October.
    24. Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2021. "Tokenomics: Dynamic Adoption and Valuation [The demand of liquid assets with uncertain lumpy expenditures]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1105-1155.
    25. Paul P. Momtaz, 2021. "The Pricing and Performance of Cryptocurrency," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4-5), pages 367-380, March.
    26. Jason Scharfman, 2023. "Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Fraud and Hacks: Part 1," Springer Books, in: The Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook, chapter 0, pages 81-95, Springer.
    27. Petro Lisowsky & Michael Minnis, 2020. "The Silent Majority: Private U.S. Firms and Financial Reporting Choices," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 58(3), pages 547-588, June.
    28. Henri Arslanian, 2022. "Decentralised Finance (DeFi)," Springer Books, in: The Book of Crypto, chapter 0, pages 291-313, Springer.
    29. Eli Amir & Shai Levi & Tsafrir Livne, 2018. "Do firms underreport information on cyber-attacks? Evidence from capital markets," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1177-1206, September.
    30. Jiahua Xu & Yebo Feng, 2022. "Reap the Harvest on Blockchain: A Survey of Yield Farming Protocols," Papers 2210.04194, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    31. Sabrina T Howell & Marina Niessner & David Yermack & Jiang Wei, 2020. "Initial Coin Offerings: Financing Growth with Cryptocurrency Token Sales," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(9), pages 3925-3974.
    32. Yukun Liu & Aleh Tsyvinski & Xi Wu, 2022. "Common Risk Factors in Cryptocurrency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 1133-1177, April.
    33. Yukun Liu & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2021. "Risks and Returns of Cryptocurrency," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(6), pages 2689-2727.
    34. Thomas Bourveau & Emmanuel T. De George & Atif Ellahie & Daniele Macciocchi, 2022. "The Role of Disclosure and Information Intermediaries in an Unregulated Capital Market: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 60(1), pages 129-167, March.
    35. Cong, Lin William & Li, Ye & Wang, Neng, 2022. "Token-based platform finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 972-991.
    36. Cédric Lesage & Nicole V. S. Ratzinger-Sakel & Jaana Kettunen, 2017. "Consequences of the Abandonment of Mandatory Joint Audit: An Empirical Study of Audit Costs and Audit Quality Effects," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 311-339, April.
    37. Jonathan Chiu & Thorsten V Koeppl, 2019. "Blockchain-Based Settlement for Asset Trading," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1716-1753.
    38. Mikko Zerni & Elina Haapamäki & Tuukka Järvinen & Lasse Niemi, 2012. "Do Joint Audits Improve Audit Quality? Evidence from Voluntary Joint Audits," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 731-765, December.
    39. Chen, Qi & Goldstein, Itay & Huang, Zeqiong & Vashishtha, Rahul, 2022. "Bank transparency and deposit flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 475-501.
    40. Sirio Aramonteand & Wenqian Huang & Andreas Schrimpf, 2021. "DeFi risks and the decentralisation illusion," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    41. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    42. Makridis, Christos A. & Fröwis, Michael & Sridhar, Kiran & Böhme, Rainer, 2023. "The rise of decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges: Evaluating the role of airdrops and governance tokens," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    43. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2023. "Decentralization through Tokenization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(1), pages 247-299, February.
    44. Gryglewicz, Sebastian & Mayer, Simon & Morellec, Erwan, 2021. "Optimal financing with tokens," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1038-1067.
    45. Lewis Gudgeon & Sam M. Werner & Daniel Perez & William J. Knottenbelt, 2020. "DeFi Protocols for Loanable Funds: Interest Rates, Liquidity and Market Efficiency," Papers 2006.13922, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2020.
    46. Paul André & GéRaldine Broye & Christopher Pong & Alain Schatt, 2016. "Are Joint Audits Associated with Higher Audit Fees?," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 245-274, June.
    47. Mark DeFond & David H. Erkens & Jieying Zhang, 2017. "Do Client Characteristics Really Drive the Big N Audit Quality Effect? New Evidence from Propensity Score Matching," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3628-3649, November.
    48. Yixin Cao & Chuanwei Zou & Xianfeng Cheng, 2021. "Flashot: A Snapshot of Flash Loan Attack on DeFi Ecosystem," Papers 2102.00626, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Konstantinos Pantelidis & Ioannis Karakostas, 2024. "Evaluating the Significance of the Total Value Locked to Market Capitalization Ratio," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 16(11), pages 1-41, November.
    2. Bogdan Adamyk & Vladlena Benson & Oksana Adamyk & Oksana Liashenko, 2025. "Risk Management in DeFi: Analyses of the Innovative Tools and Platforms for Tracking DeFi Transactions," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-31, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cumming, Douglas & Drobetz, Wolfgang & Momtaz, Paul P. & Schermann, Niclas, 2025. "Financing decentralized digital platform growth: The role of crypto funds in blockchain-based startups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 40(1).
    2. Siddharth M. Bhambhwani, 2026. "Governing Decentralised Finance," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 553-583, January.
    3. Wolfgang Drobetz & Lars Hornuf & Paul P. Momtaz & Niclas Schermann, 2025. "Token-Based Crowdfunding: Investor Choice and the Optimal Timing of Initial Coin Offerings," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 49(1), pages 232-282, January.
    4. Andreas Barth & Valerie Laturnus & Sasan Mansouri & Alexander F. Wagner, 2023. "Conflicted Analysts and Initial Coin Offerings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(11), pages 6641-6666, November.
    5. Allen, Franklin & Barbalau, Adelina, 2024. "Security design: A review," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    6. Jingxing (Rowena) Gan & Gerry Tsoukalas & Serguei Netessine, 2023. "Decentralized Platforms: Governance, Tokenomics, and ICO Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(11), pages 6667-6683, November.
    7. Farag, Hisham & Luo, Di & Yarovaya, Larisa & Zieba, Damian, 2025. "Returns from liquidity provision in cryptocurrency markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    8. Han, Jungsuk & Lee, Jongsub & Li, Tao, 2025. "A review of DAO governance: Recent literature and emerging trends," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    9. Itay Goldstein & Deeksha Gupta & Ruslan Sverchkov, 2024. "Utility Tokens as a Commitment to Competition," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(6), pages 4197-4246, December.
    10. Castillo León, Jaime & Lehar, Alfred, 2026. "What data have told us about decentralized finance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Şoiman, Florentina & Dumas, Jean-Guillaume & Jimenez-Garces, Sonia, 2023. "What drives DeFi market returns?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Caporin, Massimiliano & Cepni, Oguzhan, 2024. "Not all words are equal: Sentiment and jumps in the cryptocurrency market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    13. Zhang, Xu & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Du, Yuting & Rauf, Abdul, 2024. "Examining the bidirectional ripple effects in the NFT markets: Risky center or hedging center?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    14. Garratt, Rodney J. & van Oordt, Maarten R.C., 2026. "The crypto multiplier," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    15. Lan, Tian & Frömmel, Michael, 2025. "Risk factors in cryptocurrency pricing," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    16. Shouyu Yao & Ahmet Sensoy & Duc Khuong Nguyen & Tong Li, 2024. "Investor attention and cryptocurrency market liquidity: a double-edged sword," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 815-856, March.
    17. Shaen Corbet & Les Oxley, 2023. "Investigating the Academic Response to Cryptocurrencies: Insights from Research Diversification as Separated by Journal Ranking," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 3(4), pages 487-528, September.
    18. Yae, James & Tian, George Zhe, 2024. "Volatile safe-haven asset: Evidence from Bitcoin," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    19. Thomas Bourveau & Janja Brendel & Jordan Schoenfeld, 2024. "Decentralized Finance (DeFi) assurance: early evidence," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 2209-2253, September.
    20. Mei Luo & Shuangchen Yu, 2024. "Financial reporting for cryptocurrency," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 1707-1740, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G20 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - General
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • M15 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - IT Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:56:y:2024:i:2:s0890838923001270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-british-accounting-review .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.