Shuli Ren, Columnist

The Accountants Say Bitcoin Can’t Play With the Unicorns

A company holding such digital assets can — for the most part — only write down their value. It’s unfair. Just look at those risky startup investments.

July 11, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC

By Shuli Ren

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.

Bitcoin, stay out.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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Bitcoin lovers, cry foul!

Accounting firms are restricting corporations from holding the cryptocurrency as assets even as they give free rein to venture capital firms — such as SoftBank Group Corp. — to invest in equally risky and volatile unicorns. MicroStrategy Inc. and Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. own Bitcoin but they are exceptions. One survey found that only 5% of finance executives plan to invest in Bitcoin this year.