The Accounting Podcast

[00:00:00] Thank you to our sponsor, A2X

David Leary: For our listeners providing e-commerce accounting services, you know the pain of seeing lump sum deposits from Amazon or Shopify hitting your client's GL. It usually means you're about to spend hours manually categorizing revenue fees, and other transactions, before reconciling. E-commerce accounting doesn't have to be this hard. Stay tuned to hear more from our sponsor, A2X, later in the episode.

Blake Oliver: And that's the thing about cryptocurrency that I think people need to remember is, it's super complicated but it's also super simple. And the author describes it in this article as just a big spreadsheet where all you can do is add rows to it; you can't do anything else. And all of the mining is just designed to facilitate everybody adding the same rows to their copy of the spreadsheet. That's how I like to think about it.

David Leary: And then I think the other big call out I think you had here- and I’ll let you go into some more of the details, but normally, Ponzi schemes go after the people with money; they target financial firms, bank, the elites, wealthy investors. But with this, with Bitcoin, for $2, you can invest. On Robinhood, I think it's only $1, is he's calling this the people's Ponzi.

David Leary: Coming to you weekly from the OnPay recording studio, this is The Cloud Accounting Podcast.

Blake Oliver: Today is Saturday, January 22nd. This is The Cloud Accounting Podcast, and I am Blake Oliver.

David Leary: And I’m David Leary.

Blake Oliver: David, good to talk to you again.

David Leary: You as well, Blake.

Blake Oliver: Every week.

David Leary: Blake, I have this great idea. Well, the criminals had a great idea, but I figured out how we can exploit it to benefit the podcast.

Blake Oliver: What is your scheme?

[00:01:37] FBI says crooks are using fake QR codes to steal money

David Leary: So, apparently, the FBI has issued a warning this week. Criminals are creating QR codes that just send people to payments pages. So, you know when you go to restaurants, is the QR code to check out, they're everywhere now.

Blake Oliver: Oh, no.

David Leary: So, it's like a sticker, and you just put the sticker on, and it's a different barcode.

Blake Oliver: But it looks-

David Leary: And then it brings up a payment page, and you just put in your credit card and they just charge you, and that's it. And I was like, “This is genius. We'll just print up QR codes that subscribe to The Cloud Accounting Podcast, and we'll stick them everywhere.”

Blake Oliver: So, if I understand this correctly, you print out a QR code- you make a QR code, and you design a website that looks like the payment page for a restaurant or a store.

David Leary: It could just be any paying page ‘cause you don't know what they look like.

Blake Oliver: You just put their name on it though, just to make it seem-

David Leary: A place to get credit cards, exactly.

Blake Oliver: And then you just stick the sticker over their QR code on the menu, and then people go to pay, and they pay you instead of the- oh, my gosh. That's actually a really good scam.

David Leary: And they put them on parking meters; it's everywhere. Everywhere.

Blake Oliver: Well, it reminds me of the skimmers, the credit card skimmers that you see at ATMs or at gas stations. Have you ever seen one of those? They're really- actually, if you're paying attention, you can tell, but it's really easy if you're not paying attention to accidentally do that. And I can see the same thing happening with this. This is going to be a big thing, I bet. How do you defend against that, as an establishment?

David Leary: You stop using QR codes.

Blake Oliver: Stop using QR codes; is this the end of QR codes? Oh, no, I loved QR codes. It's so great. There's gotta be some validation. What you do is, you put a giant QR code on the wall, that's what you do.

David Leary: That they can't [CROSSTALK].

Blake Oliver: Pay using this QR code.

David Leary: Or it's electronic. It's screens, and it's on an electronic screen and nobody can stick over it. But I just thought it’d be really, we can print up stickers, and they'll just be for The Cloud Accounting Podcast instead.

Blake Oliver: To subscribe, and we'll just put them everywhere. And so, instead of paying, the people will be subscribing to us. That's the genius.

[00:03:37] Sending Blake into a spiral

Blake Oliver: Well, speaking of fraud, David- which I assume you are proposing that in a facetious manner, and not for real, because that would be somewhat fraudulent- we have a real scam to talk about. Something that is really bothering me that you brought to my attention, which is cryptocurrency potentially being a Ponzi scheme. This article you sent, where did you find this?

David Leary: Google stood to me. I don't know how I came across it, but it had a great- obviously I was going to click it. The title of the article was, Cryptocurrency is a Giant Ponzi Scheme.

Blake Oliver: And it's in Jacobin. Jacobinmag.com. So, I read this because it's such a clickbait title, and I think you might be right. Well, not you, but I think this argument has merit. And [CROSSTALK].

David Leary: It's a long article. It's a good read.

Blake Oliver: It’s a deep dive.

David Leary: Hit pause, go open it up in the show notes. It's worth the read, and it sets you off on a spiral.

Blake Oliver: It's super relevant, too, because the price of Bitcoin is down 28 percent over the past month as we record this. It is almost erased all of its gains over the last six months. And people are starting to question crypto, and you know I'm a skeptic. Anyone who listens to the podcast frequently knows that I'm a cryptocurrency skeptic. We'll talk about it later in the episode, but this has given me- my concern up to this point has always been vague; I don't get it. But now, I actually see what could be the crux of the scheme, or the problem. Again, we'll talk about it later.

[00:05:19] Bad, bad haircuts and other side effects of the Great Resignation

Blake Oliver: Before that, I just wanted to let you know about an experience I had, David, about the Great Resignation. It personally affected me, I think. I think it personally affected me, because I went to get a haircut- and I don't get expensive haircuts. I don't know about you, David. Where do you go to get your hair cut?

David Leary: I go to a [CROSSTALK] called Hush.

Blake Oliver: Salon?

David Leary: So, the fact that it's named that indicates what kind of place it is.

Blake Oliver: Well, you have very nice hair, David. I always have kept my hair really short, almost-

David Leary: I like the experience. I like the experience.

Blake Oliver: I've kept my hair short, like military. I don't like when my hair gets long. So, I just go to Supercuts to get it cut ‘cause it's literally, do a three on the sides, and take off an inch on top or something. It's pretty hard to screw up. I had the worst haircut of my life last week, and I have a feeling it's because of the staffing shortage or something, ‘cause clearly, somebody was there who has no business cutting hair And I kid you not, it's like, I came home, and after I washed my hair and looked in the mirror, I was like, “I look like Blake from when he was nine years old, and had a bowl cut.”

David Leary: Oh, boy.

Blake Oliver: It's that bad.

David Leary: We have the artwork for the show, folks. That's the cover.

Blake Oliver: I think the Great Resignation is real, and we've got stories about that. I'm a fan of going on Reddit during busy season, and reading the accounting subreddit. And there was a post- the title was something like, managers are starting to quit. What the heck is going on? Talking about everybody quitting, and people are quitting during busy season, and it's causing a lot of havoc in firms, and especially in big firms, and in audit teams. The comments are just amazing. If we have time, we can get to that.

And then there was a New York times story about turnover contagion. That one thing that might be contributing to this Great Resignation with millions of people quitting their jobs, is that- well, perhaps you've experienced this, David- if one or two or three people start to quit in your team, or your department, you then wonder, “Hey, maybe it's time for me to go.” And that's a real phenomenon, according to people who shrink heads for a living.

David Leary: Some friends of ours were over for drinks. This would be two months ago, three months ago. And during the whole pandemic till now, she runs a dermatology- I'm gonna use the word hospital, office, clinic, whatever.

Blake Oliver: Clinic.

David Leary: And so, she's the CEO, and they did not lose any employees. They were able to retain everybody during the pandemic, and then nobody's quit in the Great Resignation. She talks about how really, when people are quitting, it's not ‘cause they're chasing something new. They're trying to escape something. And so, if you think about that for your own firm- and you actually talked about this last week, or the week before. You were like, “The whole 55 hours is the minimum.” People aren't leaving because they're trying to find something, they're leaving because they don't like the hours. They don't like something about the situation they're in. They're looking to escape.

Blake Oliver: They're looking to escape those hours which are just insane. And it's getting worse because every time somebody leaves, those hours- since it's an hourly model- get shifted to somebody else on the team So, it's a compounding problem.

David Leary: And then you're like, “Hey, Joe got out. I want to get out.”

Blake Oliver: Exactly.

David Leary: I could see how this is a spreading disease.

[00:08:23] Cloud Accounting Podcast from the Metaverse?

Blake Oliver: It's a disease. And the last thing I wanted to mention is, there's been a lot of talk about the Metaverse. It's starting to- well, we've talked about how accounting firms have jumped on the bandwagon of Metaverse and bought real estate in virtual reality. So, I went ahead and ordered an Oculus, one of those headsets.

David Leary: Oh, you did?

Blake Oliver: Yeah. Well, I guess it's now a Meta headset or whatever, because Facebook rebranded it. But I bought one of those $300 Oculus VR headsets and I'm going to try it. And maybe, David, you could get one too. Since we've been talking about the Metaverse, I assume it's a write-off. It's research, David. So, you get one too, and then we could record in the Metaverse.

David Leary: I've used one. My son has one; I've used it. It's pretty cool. You walk on dinosaurs and you're going through- what's the thing floating around the earth? The space station up there, and you're-

Blake Oliver: You can do whatever you want. That’s the whole point.

David Leary: You’re in there, and then- I fell. It disorients you, and I actually fell. So, it's cool, but at the same time, you get this big-ass doofy thing in your face. It's kinda heavy, it's hot, I don't know.

Blake Oliver: We’ll try it.

David Leary: I just don't see any- who wants to live in that? Is real life that bad now that's our best option?

Blake Oliver: Well, that's what I said on Twitter, is I said, the only reason we're talking about the Metaverse is because we've all forgotten what it's like to go outside, and be with other people. I do think the metaverse has potential, long-term, but short-term, it's pretty limited. We could have our meetings, we could record the podcast in the metaverse, David, and I think we should try it. We can't just dish on it every week, and not try it. So, same thing; if you went and bought some crypto to see what that’s like.

David Leary: I did. So, I just looked at my $10 crypto investment on PayPal, and it's now worth $7.48.

Blake Oliver: Well, you bought it, and it's a good thing ‘cause you didn't buy it recently.

David Leary: It's about a year now.

Blake Oliver: So, anyway, those are the three things I have. Anything top of mind for you that we should talk about on this episode?

David Leary: The IRS ID.me. I don't know if you've heard about this.

Blake Oliver: Got to take a selfie now for the IRS?

David Leary: Yes.

Blake Oliver: I wonder what they're going to do with all those selfies. And I saw H&R Block launched its own bank, but this is the second time they've done that.

David Leary: They've been talking about it, but now, it's finally out there; it's real. I think they're really probably going to push it this tax season.

Blake Oliver: NetSuite, they released their Cash 360 feature that they were talking about at the conference we went to. That's the one where it's like cash management embedded inside of-

David Leary: It’s their bank.

Blake Oliver: Yeah, their bank, basically. Well, they partnered with H-

David Leary: HBSC.

Blake Oliver: HSBC, I think? Others is poll by Practice Ignition, about how accountants bill clients. Do they bill upfront or on completion? I was surprised by that.

David Leary: We want to jump in. You want to start with this Bitcoin thing first, since it's got you all fired up?

Blake Oliver: It's got me fired up. I think it's important- I want our listeners to let me know what they think about it, because I know we have listeners who are fans of crypto, who may be invested in crypto. One of our listeners called me up- I'm not going to say who it is- and said he’s talking about investing $100,000 into crypto right now because it dipped. And I'm saying, “No, don't do that. That's a terrible idea.” I wouldn't; it's incredibly risky. It could go to zero- sure, you could double your money, but it could also go to zero. That's not a good investment in my mind.

David Leary: And that’s true for all things, all investments. There’s a [CROSSTALK].

Blake Oliver: All investments.

[00:11:43] Thank you to our sponsor, Relay

David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting podcast is sponsored by relay financial. For those listeners that haven't been following along with my drama caused by PNC when they purchased BBVA, and botched the migration. To quickly summarize, PNC bank feeds wouldn't work with QuickBooks Online. The website had all my old BBV transactions just listed as debits and credits with no vendors or payees.

And to top it all off, the June bank statement was just missing; like June never happened. Let's just say my 2021 books were a mess. So, for 2022, I made the commitment to stop using PNC and switch everything to Relay. Relay is a no-fee, online banking platform built for you and your small business clients. Relay understand and solves all the things we, as accountants and bookkeepers, care about; security, bank feeds, automation, reconciliation.

I invited both my interns to my Relay account. They created their own user ideas and passwords. And within minutes, they were using Relay to create virtual debit cards, physical debit cards, download statements, and reconciling. Now, the bank feeds in my QuickBooks Online are reliable, and my 2022 books are in order. To stop fighting with an unreliable bank that doesn't care about you or your small business clients, head over to TheCloudAccountingPodcast.promo/Relay. That is cloudaccounting podcast.promo/RELAY.

[00:12:57] Crypto is Just a Ponzi Scheme...

David Leary: Before we get and digest some of the financial parts of this, there's just some interesting things he brought up in this article.

Blake Oliver: We’re talking about this article, Cryptocurrency is a Giant Ponzi Scheme, the clickbait article, which- yes, let’s talk about it. The author is Sohale Andrus Mortazavi. I just wanna give him credit.

David Leary: Apparently, right now, cryptocurrency and mining of it is 1 percent of all global electricity use.

Blake Oliver: Oh, the environmental impact.

David Leary: When you start thinking about the scope of that, and then he continues the argument with, it doesn't actually produce anything of material value. At least other times we use electricity, in many cases, we’re using it to produce something else. Essentially, the only way these investors in these big, huge mines- if you want to call them this- can get their money out is just to get other investors to buy their stuff. So, you can never really cash out, down the road. The whole thing, in a weird way, is inefficient by design, because essentially, it is just a big, electric spreadsheet.

Blake Oliver: And that's the thing about cryptocurrency that I think people need to remember is, it's super complicated, but it's also super simple. And the author describes it in this article as just a big spreadsheet where all you can do is add rows to it; you can't do anything else. And all of the mining is just designed to facilitate everybody adding the same rows to their copy of the spreadsheet. That's how I like to think about it.

David Leary: And then I think the other big call out I think you had here- and I’ll let you go into some more of the details, but normally, Ponzi schemes go after the people with money. They target financial firms, bank, the elites, wealthy investors. If you think about- even if Theranos was not a Ponzi scheme, those who suffered is wealthy people. And then obviously, people who would try to depend on the test. But with this, with Bitcoin, for $2, you can invest. On Robinhood, I think it's only $1, is he's calling this the people's Ponzi.

They're just getting people that maybe don't know better; $500 a year, $200 a year, and people are just- they're just basically, throwing away money buying these things. I just bought $10 in it or whenever I did, a year ago, on all the different platforms to see what it was like. Now, if you're dreaming of- you're seeing, “Oh, everybody else is getting rich,” because that's the way Ponzi schemes do it, I'm sure there's people putting their hard-earned money that they probably can't afford to lose, because it's just super convenient. This is just like buying gum at the cash register.

[00:15:17] Maybe not so much a Ponzi scheme?

Blake Oliver: I agree with you. And I'm not sure if Ponzi scheme is the right term for this, because I believe in a Ponzi scheme, you take money from new investors to pay dividends, to pay returns, to your older investors. The scam has to grow exponentially because you need an exponential number, increasing number of new investors to pay out the original ones, to get their crazy returns. That's just the way it works; it's a pyramid.

I don't know if this is a Ponzi scheme, but it definitely seems like it could be a scam, or not necessarily even a scam, it's actually more insidious than that because of the way- what is pumping up the price? The article digs into this concept of Stablecoins. And Stablecoins such as Tether - Tether is the most popular one; the most well-known one - have become essentially, the banking system of cryptocurrency. Because most traditional banks cannot work with cryptocurrency exchanges due to knowing your customer, and money laundering rules. It's very hard to transact and to buy crypto with cash. It's not easy to do it in large amounts. That's where the concept of Stablecoins came in. The idea is, “Let's create another cryptocurrency that is pegged to the U.S. dollar,” because one of the problems with cryptocurrency is that it is unstable. The value fluctuates a lot Tether is a cryptocurrency that is supposedly pegged to the dollar.

David Leary: I’d buy $100 of crypto that's tied. When I'm done, in theory, I still get my $100 back.

Blake Oliver: Let's say you buy $100; you exchange $100 of cash for $100 of Tether. Tether says, “We promise that when you want to redeem your Tether coins, you can sell them back to us, and we'll give you $100. And we're going to take your $100, and we are going to hold that in our reserves.” And they say, “All of our Tether is backed 100 percent by our reserves,” which they have lied about.

David Leary: FTIC; it's their own statement of backing.

Blake Oliver: And that's the thing. So, Tether's like a bank, really. They're operating like a bank, where they're saying, “Give us your money, we'll redeem it. We'll give you our own currency, and you can redeem it for cash.” Part of the problem with this though is, what if Tether isn't backed? Because Tether, it's not cash that is underpinning all of the cryptocurrency exchanges, and facilitating all of the purchases and all that stuff. Cash is actually very small. It's only- the majority of Bitcoin trades are now conducted in Tether; 70 percent by volume. That's according to this article. By comparison, only 8 percent of trade volume is conducted in real dollars, with the remainder being other crypto-to-crypto pairs.

Underpinning all of the cryptocurrency markets is the value of Tether. The value of Tether is completely dependent upon the company Tether actually having the ability to back Tether with dollars. So, what if they can't? What if there's a run on Tether? What if the value of Tether drops? That's the big question. The whole cryptocurrency market could collapse, because all of a sudden, what does that mean? It means that you can no longer exchange your Bitcoin for Tether. You can, but the Tether will not be worth $1; it might be worth nothing. So then, if you can't get your Bitcoin into some cash equivalent, it's worthless, right? If you can't get your money out of your investments, that's the definition of a worthless investment, right?

David Leary: Because it's hard to use it to actually purchase things.

Blake Oliver: You can’t.

David Leary: So, the only thing you could do is sell it to other investors, but nobody wants to buy it if the market's collapsed.

[00:18:44] Crypto Mystery: Where’s the $69 Billion Backing the Stablecoin Tether?

Blake Oliver: So, if Tether is creating all this liquidity, and it collapses, then the price of Bitcoin, and all the other cryptocurrencies, will collapse as well along with it. The whole thing falls down. That makes Tether really, really important. And Tether is not audited; there is no guarantee that they hold these reserves, that they actually hold these reserves. And journalists have been investigating this. Bloomberg has been trying to trace down Tether’s cash reserves, and they can't. they cannot find it. Tether, by the way, who is Tether?

It's like 12 people on LinkedIn. It's a very sketchy company. I'm not going to dig into the details of who these founders are, but they don't exactly have the greatest track records. This is not a big, global institution. Putting this in perspective, if Tether actually has all these reserves- they say they're holding it in commercial paper. It's a very small amount of cash that they say they have, and the rest is commercial paper, which means IOUs from corporations. They've lent the money to corporations, corporations agree to pay it back upon request. But who are these corporations? Who has the money? Where is the money? Nobody can track it down.

Now, Tether has put on its website an independent accountant report by Moore Stephens. The last one was in September 30th, 2021- as of September 30th, 2021. The report is called Tether Assurance Consolidated Reserves Report. Again, they haven't gone through an audit, but they have this report on their website. It's amazing because even me, as a CPA, I can't really tell what this report is assuring us as to, ‘cause it's not an audit.

The opinion states that essentially, consolidated total assets and liabilities are correctly classified as set out in the CCR- the CRR, the consolidated reserves report. Tether prepared a reserves report saying, “Here's all the money we have that backs Tether. Here's the cash, here's the commercial paper, all the other assets” They had an accounting firm come in and look at that report. And if I'm reading this correctly, this opinion, all the accounting firm did was say, “You have prepared it properly. You have classified these different items in the correct categories,” but it's not like they went and looked at these assets. And there is so much money-

David Leary: So, it's really just saying, “Your chart of accounts has the right names.”

Blake Oliver: Yeah, or, “Current assets are in the correct spot on your balance sheet.” That's what this report seems to indicate to me. They didn't actually look into whether these amounts are correct. They aren't providing assurance as to whether or not the money is actually there. But then Tether, on its website, is saying, quote, “The opinion and the underlying report from Tether clearly, unambiguously, shows that all Tethered tokens are fully backed by reserves, and provides a comprehensive breakdown of those reserves.” So, they're saying, “We have the reserves, but there's no audit. There has not been an audit.”

Oh, and by the way, they had to settle a lawsuit because they've lied about this in the past. So, there's a track record of lying about their reserves. And they still haven't gotten an audit. And then everybody who looks into this- or at least the journalists who have looked into this- are saying, if Tether actually has- how much money is in Tether? The market cap of Tether is $78 billion. So, supposedly, there's $78 billion that Tether has in the form of commercial paper and cash. That's a lot of money. If Tether actually had that money, it would make them one of the biggest banks; it would make them a giant bank. But nobody knows where the money is. You ask around, and what does this indicate? There’s no smoking gun, there's no proof that we can point to, to say that it doesn't exist. But what if? And you would think that if it did exist, they would have gotten an audit.

[00:22:26] Stablecoins = Sketchycoins?

Blake Oliver: It's crazy that you have all this money- people are paying so much money for Tether in order to speculate on cryptocurrency markets. But we don't even know if Tether actually exists. And so, if people start to doubt Tether and they try to exchange their Tether for dollars, if the company can't deliver on it, that's a bank run, bank failure. It's the same stuff that happened in the Wildcat banking period in U.S. history, when you had banks issuing their own currency and they didn't have the reserves to back it. This is why you have the FDIC, to protect people from this exact kind of situation.

So, that's why you've seen the SEC, Janet Yellen start to get concerned about Stablecoins. They're just moving too slow. They see the problem, but they're just moving too slow. Anyway, there's a whole bunch of other indicators in this story that point to Tether being sketchy. Maybe there not being the reserves there, maybe price manipulation going on, because Tether is being minted in strange amounts, and in large amounts, and in a way that doesn't indicate that it's actually being used for what it's supposed to be used for, which is as a substitute for the U.S. dollar.

David Leary: And then on top of that, you have all the NFT things that are popping up, and the coin offerings, and people start summing up and they have to pump it to get people to buy those. There's just a lot of speculation, but it's crazy, right? I just opened up my Cash App here from Square, and I'm looking at my value of my Bitcoin in there, and it's currently valued at $7.31. So, my $10 investment is not doing good. I basically have lost 25 percent in an investment that all time- if you view the all-time chart, shows it's increased 264,000 percent all time. And I've lost money.

Blake Oliver: Well, ‘cause it's only increased that much all time for the people who bought it when it was worthless, essentially worthless. So, the thing that's the most important to me about all this is, disregarding all of this potential for fraud, and for a collapse of Tether, this is what's unbelievable. Tether itself does not guarantee that they will redeem Tether coins for U.S. dollars. In their terms of service, it says that they can choose not to. So, these really, are nothing more than Chuck E. Cheese tokens. Chuck E. Cheese reserves the right not to redeem your tokens.

David Leary: For anything.

Blake Oliver: For anything. If they go out of business, your tokens are worthless. This is the same thing. They actually state this in their terms, that they don't have- so, there's no recourse. Imagine if when you went to open a bank account, the bank said when you opened the checking account, “All right, you're going to give us your money. There's no guarantee that we will give it back to you when you ask for it.” That's Tether, and that is underpinning the cryptocurrency markets.

David Leary: And it should be okay if complex investors had all the knowledge and could do this, but the problem is, anybody that has the Cash App or all these new banks and these Robinhood, and all these little apps, can just buy this. It's really being just shoved in people's faces. Like you said, it's like buying a pack of gum at the cash register.

Blake Oliver: And your typical retail investor or your Robinhood investor has no clue about any of this stuff going on in the background.

David Leary: They just see the chart that keeps going up, and they're like, “Oh, well, if I give $500 and it goes up 100 percent again, I'm going to have $1,000.”

Blake Oliver: My friend invested $1,000 and now has $10,000. I'm going to YOLO too. Oh, I'm going to buy the dip. Buy the dip, buy the dip.” Buying the dip is idi-

David Leary: I literally could buy $1 worth of Bitcoin. Next- this doesn’t make any sense; this is crazy.

Blake Oliver: I'm basically convinced now, there's something very wrong here. And buyer beware.

David Leary: And that's it. I just purchased $1 worth of Bitcoin.

Blake Oliver: And you know what?

David Leary: Just a click, click, boom. Very impulsive.

Blake Oliver: Accountants could step in and help with this. We could provide assurance on this, and solve the problem. But I think that the reason there's no audit is because there is a problem. And it's the same thing with Theranos, we talked about. Why did Theranos go so long without an audit? Well, because clearly, they couldn't pass it. And I wonder, I speculate, I tend to think that that's the situation here. And so, if this is true, we're going to see a eventual collapse because people are going to lose faith in Tether, and there'll be a run. People won't be able to get their money out, and all that crypto will become worthless.

[00:26:52] Thank you to our sponsor, A2X

David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by A2X. since 2014, A2X has helped thousands of online merchants and their advisors save in ordinate amounts of time, reconciling the revenue for their online stores. A2X post tidy summaries of sales, returns, and fees from Shopify and Amazon directly into QuickBooks or Xero that exactly match the deposits that appear in the bank account, allowing you to accurately reconcile in just one click, giving you the confidence of knowing that your client's e-commerce financials are accurate.

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[00:28:05] MicroStrategy Plummets as SEC Rejects Its Bitcoin Accounting

David Leary: Kind of tied to this, MicroStrategy- are you familiar with MicroStrategy?

Blake Oliver: Yeah. So, they were one of the software companies that put $250 million to Bitcoin years ago, and helped to-

David Leary: In September of 2020, they did that. ‘Cause some of these companies were like, “Oh, we're going to diversify our balance sheet. I think Tesla did it and some other companies have said this, “Hey, we're going to start buying some Bitcoin.” So, that's grown into $5 billion in theory of value-

Blake Oliver: Their money.

David Leary: -of real money. But they ran into a problem because obviously, it's decreasing in value right now.

Blake Oliver: Oh, it's dropped dramatically.

David Leary: Dropped dramatically at 25 percent in the last month or whatever. And so, it's starting to affect their stock price.

Blake Oliver: And they got in trouble. They got in trouble for how they tried to wave a magic wand, make it go away. So, the problem with crypto, from an accounting standpoint, is that it’s an intangible asset- we are recommended to record it as an intangible asset. There's actually no guidance from anyone as to how we're supposed to do it. There's no gap for cryptocurrency. No generally accepted accounting principles, just recommendations. So, we treat it as an intangible asset, and we have to write it down when it decreases in value. And we can't write it up when it increases in value. So, MicroStrategy got screwed in their recent quarterly report, because the price dropped what, 20 percent or more. And so, now, their earnings went negative by tens of millions of dollars.

And then they tried to- in their report, they tried to back it out and say, “Oh, we're going to exclude this.” And the sec was like, “No.” They tried to use a non-gap metric to explain this way, and the SEC was like, “Don't do this anymore.” It bites you in the butt. Actually, the MicroStrategy has been cited in stories about crypto as being one of the things that helped to pump up the price of Bitcoin in the past.

David Leary: And that was my takeaway that ties it back to the other article on this. So, they only spent $250 million on Bitcoin, but they used money- they raised-

Blake Oliver: There is $1 billion after that or something.

David Leary: $1 billion cash.

Blake Oliver: So, they used it to get attention.

David Leary: So, basically, they're just taking investors' money and moving into Bitcoin. It's not arguably a real investment. I don't know how to say that, but it's not like MicroStrategy is like, “Oh, we had this cash, we have this huge cash reserve because we run this amazing company. And I need to do something with the money; we're going to put some of it here.” It's basically, they're just taking VC money and putting it into this. It's about as gambling as it could get. They’re playing with house money. Or not house money, they're playing with other people’s money.

Blake Oliver: They’re playing investor money and then they're raising more money to pay for their expenses. That's amazing. In the meantime, you know what would solve this is- there's only one solution to this, because anyone could go create a Stablecoin, and you could do it in a jurisdiction where we don't have the ability to control it.

David Leary: Before you jump out of that, this is another part of that article with MicroStrategy. So, it's worth $5 billion.

Blake Oliver: MicroSrategy is worth $5 billion, or you're saying that $250 million they put in is now worth $5 billion?

David Leary: Yes. They have $5 billion worth of Bitcoin holdings, but they, “No, never, we're not sellers. We're only acquiring and holding Bitcoin. That's our strategy.” Don't they have a responsibility to the investors?

Blake Oliver: So, here's the thing is, this is a backdoor for investor money to get exposure to crypto- Bitcoin, when they can't, normally. So, the trick is, rules prevent you from buying Bitcoin directly. Instead, you buy a company that has invested a lot of money in Bitcoin, then you can get those big returns. That's why people are doing this; that's my theory

David Leary: And I also think if they attempt to sell $5 billion worth of Bitcoin, they're not going to make that much at it. The price would fall even more.

Blake Oliver: And that's the thing about this whole market cap of Bitcoin. It's not like there's actually- what's the current market cap of Bitcoin? Let's take a look.

David Leary: The $5 billion worth is what it's worth after the 40 percent fall from its all-time highs So, they're pushing probably $10 billion worth of Bitcoin they had at one time.

Blake Oliver: Total market cap of Bitcoin, BTC, is $660 billion, but that doesn't mean that's how much money was invested in Bitcoin. That's just the number of Bitcoins times the last price somebody paid for it. That's what's important to remember. If people are buying Bitcoin with Tether, so you're buying an imaginary currency with another imaginary currency. And let's say Tether is minting Tether that's not backed by U.S. dollars; it's all imaginary This is not based on real investments. That's the thing to remember here.

David Leary: So, is this one of those mental traps, you know you're never gonna get your $5 billion worth of this, so you just double down on your wrong argument and be like, “Well, just buy more.”?

Blake Oliver: Well, no. It's just like the mortgage market before the financial crisis. People know something's wrong. The people inside know there's problems, but they're making so much money, they're willing to ignore it, and they're just hoping not to be the last guy holding the bag.

There's plenty of people who made money in the mortgage markets that got out before it collapsed. That's what everybody's planning to do; the smart people. Then there's a bunch of dumb people who have no idea what's going on. It's a classic- I wouldn't say it's a Ponzi, but I think it's a classic bubble that's based on flawed fundamentals, and there's some sort of failure that's going to happen, and that will set everything off. That's a very real possibility.

So, meanwhile, the problem with this- what's the solution, I guess is what I should say- there's not really a good solution that's going to happen anytime soon, because anyone can go start a Stablecoin. And as long as people believe in it or are willing to ignore these obvious problems, like where's the $69 billion, then they'll still exist. We could play Whac-A-Mole with them, we could shut them down, but they can operate for years until they get shut down and then a new one can pop up and open.

So, really, the only solution is if the federal government creates its own digital currency, and then bans other cryptocurrencies, which I think will eventually happen because we'll have some massive collapse, it'll hurt the markets; Crypto is going to be the next recession. Then, after that, we'll finally have some regulation around this. U.S. will create a digital currency, will ban other cryptos-

[00:34:00] Fed opens debate over a U.S. central bank digital currency with long-awaited report

Blake Oliver: -and that will actually be useful, but it's going to be slow because it's not going to happen until there's some- maybe it'll happen before there's a triggering event, but the fed has just started the debate over a U.S. central bank digital currency. That's according to the New York Times. They took their first step toward more seriously examining the issue, releasing a report on Thursday that examines the idea's potential costs and benefits, and opening the door for public comment. There's a reason that China banned cryptocurrencies, and created their own, because they can control it.

We'll see what happens. Unfortunately, I think a lot of small investors are going to get burned before we do anything about it. So, I'm curious what our listeners think about this. I'd love to hear your opinions. Please do write me, Blake@BlakeOliver.com. We have lobbyists here in the U.S., we've got a lot of lobbyists in the crypto industry telling Congress, “Don't regulate us. Don't regulate us.” And I think that's also why it's going to be a problem. Oh, and by the way, two of the senators who make the rules about cryptocurrency- I think it's the financial services committee or something like that- they own crypto. Just FYI.

[00:35:03] Eric Adams, a Bitcoin Booster, Is Taking First Paycheck in Crypto

Blake Oliver: Oh, and then there's this other story I just had to share. Did we talk about Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York? He said he's going to take his salary in Bitcoin.

David Leary: [INAUDIBLE] this is the mayors and governors are doing this. It’s the in-thing right now.

Blake Oliver: Apparently, he couldn't actually take his first three paychecks in Bitcoin as he had promised, because federal labor laws require New York City to pay base wages to its employees, including Mr Adams, in government-issued currency. So, he couldn't actually get paid in Bitcoin. What he did was he used Coinbase to convert his paycheck on Friday into Bitcoin and Ethereum. So, that was the big announcement was, he got his paycheck, and then he bought Bitcoin with it. What a great PR stunt, right?

David Leary: Yeah.

Blake Oliver: Well, what else can we talk about?

David Leary: We could jump on the IRS, the ID.me.

Blake Oliver: Oh, yeah, let's talk about that.

[00:35:51] IRS begins requiring new ID system for accessing online accounts

David Leary: So, I went through this a few weeks ago, because I filed my 2020 taxes really late, and I had to set up a password on the IRS. And now, they have this new system; you can't just set up your old username and password. You have to migrate to this platform called ID.me.

Blake Oliver: This may be familiar to people because it's being used by other companies, other areas of the government.

David Leary: 27 states are using it now. It's for identity theft- remember all the unemployment fraud we saw?

Blake Oliver: Yeah. So, ID.me, you have to take- what do you do? To get into your account, you have to take a-

David Leary: To rewind a little bit, I didn't think this was a big deal when I was doing it, because I just went through this dance with that other company, Clear. So, remember we went to Oracle, we went to SuiteWorld, and then we went to Sage’s Intacct Advantage. And both of those times, they were using that company called Clear. So, Clear is the- at the security, at the airport line, they do a background check. You provide them IDs, and you can bypass the security line at the airport. Well, they have gotten into this identity management and they got into COVID testing.

So, before we could attend that conference with a third-party company, I had to upload my driver's license, a selfie of myself, and all of this information, and then a proof of my vaccination status to attend that conference. So, when I went to the IRS’s website, they asked me for the same dance. I had to prove who I was, I had to upload my driver's license, I had to take a selfie. It's a little bit of a dance I've been through, and I had to do this with another app recently on my phone. Maybe it was the Clear app, though.

I didn't think much about this but now, Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security, he discovered this and wrote a blog post about it, about how the IRS is moving to this ID.me. And now, every other news company has picked it up, including CBS, Accounting Today. I think the real thing to remember- and he does a walkthrough of this, screen by screen, click by click- the big takeaway of this is, don't wait till the last minute, because you might have to get a push notification, you might get email verification you have to type back in, you have to upload your driver's license, and you might need to provide a different piece of identification. And if you don't have all that ready to go, you have to keep starting the process over.

So, don't wait till the last minute with your clients. You probably need to sit down with them and make sure they're set up with their ID.me now, before the last week of tax season. I get why they did this, all the fraud we were seeing with TurboTax and H&R Block, and stealing people's tax return information. It's the right idea behind this, but the argument is, should a third-party company be doing this? basically, they're not the gatekeeper saying who you are, and who you aren't, when you interact with the federal government.

Blake Oliver: What's the alternative? The IRS doesn't have the capability to build this, and like you said, this is how a lot of scams were happening, is scammers were using their Get Transcript tool to get transcripts for people, and then using the data in the transcripts to commit identity fraud. So, you gotta have some way to protect the IRS systems to ID people, other than your social security number, and what is it? It's usually your social security number, and an amount you reported on a previous return. So, you don't have to use this to file your taxes; it's just for the self-help tools. So, if you want to get a transcript-

David Leary: If you want to communicate-

Blake Oliver: So, this is good. This is a great step.

David Leary: You can file and you can pay- I think it's a big step, but how much power should a third-party company like this have? We've seen- and the IRS actually already backed away from back in the day when they were doing stuff with Equifax, but we've seen these other companies get hacked.

Blake Oliver: Then, we’ll see. Well, if it works, that’s the important thing.

[00:39:17] Thank you to our sponsor, Synder

David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting podcast is sponsored by Synder. With direct connections to Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Stripe, Square, and 20 of the most popular online and e-commerce platforms, Synder automatically categorizes and accurately posts transactions into the accounting system. All I need to easily prepare your client's data and organize their consolidated P&L, regardless of the number of platforms they may be selling on.

Synder allows you to use the general ledger of your choice, QuickBooks, Xero, even Synder’s own GL, which is designed specifically for e-commerce businesses, and contains everything you need out of the box to make tax season a breeze. Synder can sync all the necessary details like inventory items, tax, shipping, discounts, classes, and locations- even correctly handles the processor fees.

With tools like a duplicate detector and rollback functions, you can rest assured your client's books will never get messed up because you can undo and restore any synced data with literally, one click. If you need support from Synder, they offer free help using your favorite music communication, be it chat, email, or phone. To try out Synder for free, head over to CloudAccountingPodcast.promo/Synder. That is cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/SYNDER.

[00:40:28] Block Bank?

Blake Oliver: Let's talk about- since we're talking about tax season, taxes, H&R Block. We mentioned H&R Block is launching its own challenger bank. This is called Spruce. They first teased it last March. At the time, chief executive, Jeff Jones, said he wanted to diversify the company's product set and target low-to-moderate income customers without strong banking relationships. This is as reported in American Banker- somebody comes into H&R Block, they don't have a bank account, H&R Block says, “Hey, we'll deposit your return into a bank account we'll set up for you. We got all your info.” Makes a lot of sense, right? No-fee spending account, ability to set up savings goals, cashback rewards on the Spruce debit card, credit card score monitoring, early access to paychecks and overdraft protection of up to $20. It's open to all users, whether or not you use H&R Block tax services. Everyone's becoming a bank, David.

David Leary: They should have called it Square instead of Spruce.

Blake Oliver: Or just block. They should have called it Block Bank. Block Bank.

David Leary: They have their 21 million households use H&R Block every year. So, they're going to get people using this. They're going after that underbanked divide, and everybody's chasing this. We've talked about Chime before on the show, the digital bait, Chime. They've started to work with Goldman Sachs, they're prepping for their IPO, and probably, going to value the company at $40 billion.

[00:41:51] NetSuite Cash 360 Helps Organizations Effectively Manage Cash Flow

Blake Oliver: NetSuite has released Cash 360 to help organizations effectively manage cashflow. It's a cash management solution built into NetSuite that includes configurable dashboards- well, a configurable dashboard and automated cashflow-forecasting capabilities that provide a real-time view of cash positions. That is according to Oracle in their press release.

Links to key cash management activities, displaying reminders of tasks that need to be taken care of, current cash balance, accounts payable and accounts receivable balances, cashflow trends, and a rolling six-month cashflow forecast. So, I wonder, does this have the linked bank account? So, it's showing the dashboard, it's got the cashflow forecasting, but it doesn't seem like they've yet got the integrated bill pay. And that was the thing that excited me, was the idea that you're going to be able to have an account with HSBC, where you can pay a bill in NetSuite, and then HSBC makes the payment.

David Leary: Real advantage of the way they've done this is out of the box, you're getting all geographies, all locations, all countries-

Blake Oliver: Global.

David Leary: -international payments, all that out of the box with that.

Blake Oliver: Global treasury management. So, right now, they’ve built the dashboard. They still got to build the other stuff.

[00:43:05] HoneyBook, jaris Team on Managing Client, Cash Flow

David Leary: So, the niche app HoneyBook. HoneyBook is essentially- I'm a wedding planner, I'm a wedding photographer. It's the space they're in, practice management type software. You do your quote and get paid, that type of a thing. They announced that they are working with a company called jaris. So, it's a lending service called jaris, that they are now going to launch what they call as HoneyBook capital, which probably leads to the next thing. At first, you offer loans, then it's like, “Oh, you get your HoneyBook bank account.” So, I would not be surprised if we see this niche app offer the bank account next.

Blake Oliver: Everyone's becoming a bank.

[00:43:41] Israeli startup April raises $10 million in Seed funding for U.S tax platform

Blake Oliver: AI-powered tax platform, April, launches after $10 million seed round. This is another Accounting Today story. What is April? It is a personalized tax engine that uses natural language processing and human-assisted AI, along with partnerships with financial institutions to streamline the tax preparation process, and more closely align it with financial wellness. I went to their website, and it's tax software for individuals. That's what it looks like to me, not for accountants. Tell me what you think, David, but it looks like a competitor to TurboTax.

David Leary: I don't know for sure on this, but there was a product out there a long time ago- Intuit acquired them. Really a long time ago; I'm talking 6, 7, 8 years ago. And it was called GoodApril. And I've seen other startups like this pop up, and the whole premise is like, “Hey we're going to help you make decisions along the year, so you have a good April. We're going connect in your bank accounts, and this, and this.” And some of them will even readjust- I think there's a company, a startup out here we've talked about on the show that'll- you know a lot of these things now, the get-paid-early stuff, the instant payments, or get your paycheck two days early. And they're going to gesture withholding along the way during the year, or pre-give you some of your withholding now, based on where your tax situation's going to be in April. So, there's a lot of that going on, but I don't know specifically on this one.

Blake Oliver: Well, it seems to be doing that because for the first step in the how it works, is connect April to your finance apps. And it says, “Connect your payroll, bank statements, mortgage, and prior your tax return, and other finance apps so we can collect your data.” Then it's, “Tell us about yourself, then do a quick review to make sure we didn't do anything.” And then, “Sit back, relax and file with ease. Leave the number crunching to us.” So, it doesn't say how much it costs yet, it just says get early access. Cost of filing with April depends on our commercial arrangement with your bank. Wait, so, you buy this through a bank?

David Leary: Yes. So, they're going to consumer, but they're not going direct to consumer. They're going to consumer via the banks.

Blake Oliver: I think that said, it's a partnership play. The interesting thing about the co-founders is they are solid co-founders. Deloitte FinTech strategists Ben Borodach, B-O-R-O-D-A-C-H, who led corporate strategy for the venture group Team8, and the other co-founder is Daniel Marcous, M-A-R-C-O-U-S, former acting CTO of navigation startup Waze, which sold to Google for $1 billion in 2013. So, the former CTO of Waze and a Deloitte FinTech strategist. So, maybe they’ll be able to disrupt TurboTax through these partnerships; we'll see.

David Leary: Do you remember pilot- not pilot, sorry. Visor?

Blake Oliver: Yes, that was similar, right?

David Leary: So, Visor [INAUDIBLE] the, “Hey, $99, you get 24 hours access to CPA,” and they completely- they weren't filing people's returns, and it was just a mess and it fell apart. My understanding is those founders have spun up another company that's very similar to this.

Blake Oliver: Oh.

David Leary: That's what I was just actually trying to look and see, and work backwards, but I don't think it’s the same guys.

Blake Oliver: Well, it makes a lot of sense because accountants don't want to do personal tax returns anymore. We're getting rid of them as much as we can. H&R Block doesn't want to do them because you need tech to do it; that's the only way you can do it at that price. The idea of human-powered 1040s is fading fast. And what was interesting about April is Jody Padar is joining them as a strategist, from bot keeper. And I was wondering why. Why is Jody Padar, who's a thought leader in the accounting space, why is she joining them if they're selling to consumers? And then I realized maybe their plan is to sell April to accounting firms for their 1040s; the personal tax stuff that they don't want to do. That would make sense. So, we'll have to wait and see.

David Leary: I could see why the banks want to add stuff like this, with H&R Block adding a bank account. It's probably easier now for companies to add banking services to their app, or to their company, than it is for the banks to add tax services. I could totally see how the banks want this. I also feel like services like this, they're great on paper. And again, going back to- remember the TurboTax, H&R Block, the simple return that verbiage? I think yes, simple returns probably, yes, this is probably going to work. But things are complicated really fast, especially now. Crypto, how's it gonna handle that? People are buying crypto in their Cash App for $1. You probably can’t connect Cash App to this; we'll see where this heads.

[00:48:02] Practice Ignition Asks: What's Your Billing Process?

Blake Oliver: Practice Ignition did a Twitter poll, caught my attention. They said, “There's been a lot of discussion about timing of payments today on tax Twitter. So, we'd like to take a poll. When it comes to billing clients, what is your current process? Prepayment in full, meaning you get paid upfront; just 12 percent said they get payment in advance. Billing on completion, the opposite, waiting until you've done the work to bill; 63 percent said bill on completion. And this is of accountants on hashtag tax Twitter. So, this is I presume, the more tech savvy folks. 63 percent still bill on completion, 50-50 split. So, I get half upfront, half on completion, 16 percent. And then other- you'd have to read the comments for that- were 9 percent.

I highly recommend prepayment in full, or at least getting 50 percent upfront. And if you add those together, that's only 28 percent. 63 percent bill on completion. I find that shocking, because one of the easiest things you can do in your practice, really way easier than raising your fees, is just to get paid at least a portion of your fee in advance. Your cashflow is just so much better. It's so easy, and it doesn't get that much pushback. And if you get a lot of pushback, it's usually from the clients who are not the best clients. Because the ones who are good clients understand that you have cashflow needs, and you've got to pay your staff to do the work. If you're getting paid after the fact, you're basically floating the money to your client. You know what I mean? This is so easy. This is the easiest freaking thing you could do, is just get paid upfront.

David Leary: Well, I'm trying to think, so, your client comes in to you and says, “Hey I'm having cashflow problems.” And you, as the accountant, might look at their situation and say, “Hey, make sure you get paid before you do the work. Before you do that next landscaping job, Mr Landscaper, get 50 percent deposit before you start doing the work.”

Blake Oliver: We're not following our own advice.

David Leary: I'm very confused by the psychology of this. Because I think accountants and bookkeepers might tell that to their clients, to do that for their own businesses, but they can't do it themselves There's some emotional problem here happening.

Blake Oliver: I know one of the reasons why accountants don't do this, is they feel like it's wrong to bill for some service they haven't provided yet. They actually feel it's wrong to do that. I don't think it's wrong to do that; I don't think there's any ethical issue with this, but I also see it that way a bit from the point of view where, if I haven't provided the service, I don't want the cash in my account, because I want to get paid as I complete that work.

David Leary: Then why don’t you properly put it into a liability account?

Blake Oliver: Yeah, but accountants, we don't actually do this ourselves. We don't have time for that. We're busy. At least get paid a deposit. At least get your cost of goods covered. If you are marking up your staff two and a half times, that means your CoGS is 40 percent, at least get a 40, 50 percent deposit so that you're not on the hook if the client doesn't pay for- you don't lose money. The ideal situation is, let's say you just do tax, convert all your clients to paying you on a monthly or quarterly basis, and to take to the fee that they pay you for their return that you bill on completion, and just spread that out throughout the year. It will change your life.

David Leary: There's so many apps that do this. I’m just shocked that it's still not happening.

Blake Oliver: Well, and it's like, I know a lot of accountants are afraid to raise prices. We don't like to do it, we feel bad about it, we hate arguing with clients about fees. This is not something that really should be a debate. You shouldn't be getting pressure from clients to not pay you, at least, a deposit upfront. Attorneys do this; do you pay your attorney, pay them a retainer, right? You give them money before they start the work; that's normal. You have to give your insurance to your doctor before they'll see you. You have to provide evidence of insurance. That means that you can pay. When you order furniture, you have to put a deposit down. I’ll leave it at that for now.

David Leary: My hands are up. I dunno; I don't understand the psychology on this. Why, as an industry, we struggle with it more than other industries.

Blake Oliver: It's because- this is the thing that prevents us from moving into advisory- most of us accountants are terrible business owners. And accounting firms are not run like real businesses. Sad to say it, but it's true. We are horrible at running businesses, and that's why we suck at giving advice, most of the time. And that's why, David, it's funny, I almost laughed when you said that, your client comes to you and asks for advice. Most clients don't come and ask their accountant for advice like that, because the accountants don't know how to give it. Because if they did, they would be doing it themselves.

And I'm speaking as a CPA who has run a firm and talks to a lot of accountants all the time. We are generally, not taught to be good business owners. I blame the education. It's amazing how many CPAs own their own practices. There's something like 40- how many CPA firms are there in the U.S.? It's in the tens of thousands. And yet, CPAs don't learn a lick in school about how to run their own business. Maybe that should be on the CPA exam, or in the curriculum; how to run your own business.

David Leary: How to bill your clients.

Blake Oliver: How to bill your clients, how to get a deposit, how to get paid. I'm getting angry now. We’ll move on.

[00:53:10] Tally Street is now part of Rootworks

David Leary: Right Networks, remember they purchased Rootworks?

Blake Oliver: Yeah.

David Leary: And then before that, Right Networks purchased Transaction Pro importer, they purchased the sync tool for syncing apps- I'm blanking on the name of that, and then they purchased Rootworks, and Rootworks purchased CPA Practice Advisor. Now, they purchased an analytics app called Tally Street. It looks like Rootworks and Right Networks, they're building a stack. I don't know what direction they're going, ‘cause it's a media company over here, a data input company over here, obviously, the hosting company as well. Definitely, they're diversifying though, ‘cause we could argue on a long-enough timeline, hosting is going to go away. So, they are definitely diversifying into some other things, but now, they have the end result; the reporting, if you want to call it reporting or analytics.

Blake Oliver: Well, David, that’s about all the time we've got this week. If people want to get in touch with you online, where do you recommend they do that?

David Leary: The easiest way is I'm on all the socials, just at @DavidLeary.

Blake Oliver: I am @BlakeTOliver; let me know your thoughts, @ us on Twitter and email me at Blake@BlakeOliver.com if you have any thoughts, any hate mail about my crypto feelings. Now, I don't care. I think I'm right. I used to feel bad about it, being a skeptic. Now, I'm like, “Oh, no, no, no. There's something up here.” But let me know your thoughts, and if you want to hear your own voice on the air, I'd love to get a voice memo from you. So, instead of typing that message, save yourself some trouble, record a voice memo on your phone, email that to me, and we'll listen, and we might even play it on the air. And you can tell me if you want me to use your name or not; you don't have to go public with your thoughts.

David Leary: I would love to hear a story about somebody's client that lost money in Bitcoin, because I do feel like it's like Vegas. Everybody says about how much they want.

Blake Oliver: Oh, yeah. Well, you know what-

David Leary: There's always stories about 17-year-old made $2 million in Bitcoin. There's all these stories all the time, but somebody is losing money.

Blake Oliver: Well, the people who are losing money are the ones who are really loud about how much money they were making, and they're now really quiet. Those are the people who lost the money. And you know who you are. I'm sorry for your loss; I really am, but also, it wasn't that smart. I'll shut up. David, have a great week. I'll talk to you next week.

David Leary: All right, bye.

[00:55:28] Classifieds

David: Time for the classifieds.

[00:55:34] Oh My Fraud: A True Crime Podcast for Accountants

Blake: Hey, podcast listeners, it's Blake, and I wanted to let you know about a new show I'm working on with CPA/comedian, Greg Kyte, and blogger/former CPA, Caleb Newquist. It's called, Oh My Fraud, and it's a podcast all about financial crimes. That's right, a true crime podcast for accountants, by accountants.

Caleb and Greg are going to come together every couple of weeks to unpack their favorite frauds, and explore the circumstances, psychology, and interpersonal dynamics involved. They also fully indulge in victim blaming the defrauded widows, orphans, infirm, and feebleminded- because who can resist?

If you fancy yourself a trusted advisor, or prefer your true crime with spreadsheets instead of corpses, listen to this show to learn what to watch out for, and to keep your clients, your firm, and even yourself, safe. To subscribe, go to ohmyfraud.com, or search "Oh My Fraud" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:56:34] How to advertise in these classifieds

David: Want to get the word out about your newsletter, webinar, party, Facebook group, podcast, e-book, job posting, or that fancy Excel macro you just created? Why not let the listeners of The Cloud Accounting Podcast know by running a classified ad? Hit the show notes for the link to get more info.