Bitcoin

[Andrew Skretvedt]

I'm following the recent list traffic discussing bitcoin in GnuCash. In
the interim, while a mechanism to add to the code for official support
is being considered, I wonder about what you might do as a substitute if
you operated a business transacting primarily in bitcoin.

One thought might be to select some currency unit you didn't normally
use and felt comfortable pretending as a stand-in for bitcoin. Then, to
overcome the issue of decimal precision, rather than journalizing in
whole bitcoin units, use a subunit of bitcoin that can be accommodated
by the existing precision, like micro-bitcoin or even satoshi.

Then, you just declare to anyone else who may need to use your GnuCash
output, that although the report shows currency "xxx", the accounts are
denominated in micro-bitcoin.

If you can set the exchange rate between your chosen stand-in currency
and another currency you also need to keep accounts in, say EUR, then I
think you'd be all set with an interim functional set of books.

I wonder how existing bitcoin-accepting businesses handle their accounting?

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