Assurance regime; jurisdiction International/EU
Crypto exchange proof of reserves
Voluntary assurance that collapsed after a failure: the attesting firms withdrew rather than deepen access. A live example of assurance retreating when the assessed party controls scope and data.
Path signature
V voluntary T trigger R rollback T trigger M mandate
Similarity of its opening to frontier AI: 0.44 (matched opening VTRTM)
Stages reached
| Voluntary | 2014 |
| Trigger | 2014 |
| Mandate | 2023 |
| Standards | not reached |
| Oversight | not reached |
| Independence | not reached |
| Access | not reached |
Mechanisms
| Before reform | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| pays | A | A |
| selects | A | A |
| access | shallow | shallow |
| publishes | public | public |
| oversees | none | regulator |
Exchange picks and pays; attestations on exchange-supplied snapshots; MiCA adds custody duties.
Payer, access, publication
Who pays. Exchange pays the attesting firm.
Access. Snapshot of on-chain holdings and liability data supplied by the exchange.
Publication. Attestation letters published by the exchange.
Milestones
| Year | Kind | Event | Strength | Harm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | trigger | Mt. Gox collapse. | financial_loss: Losses above $1B | source | |
| 2014 | voluntary assurance | Exchanges begin publishing proof-of-reserve attestations. | source | ||
| 2022 | rollback | Accounting firms pause or withdraw proof-of-reserves work for crypto clients. | source | ||
| 2022 | trigger | FTX collapse; a prior attestation had not covered liabilities. | financial_loss: Losses above $1B; prior attestation omitted liabilities | source | |
| 2023 | mandate | EU MiCA imposes safeguarding and reporting duties on crypto-asset service providers, applying from 2024. | 2 | source |
seed; secondary sources, years spot-checked; verify against a primary source before citing in the paper Data: data/industries/crypto-reserves.json