McKenna at Consensus 2023: All The Devils Were There

I was asked to lead a panel at Consensus 2023, the gathering of crypto enthusiasts sponsored by Coindesk. And then it got interesting.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Old friend Marc Hochstein — he was previously one of my first and best editors at American Banker during the post-crisis era — took the job this year of running Coindesk’s Consensus 2023 in Austin, Texas. Billed as a “a call to action for developers, investors, founders, policymakers, brands and others to come together and find solutions to crypto's thorniest challenges and finally deliver on the technology's transformative potential,” it reminded me of the old SAP Sapphire Conferences I used to go to as a consultant. Full disclosure, I have written for and been quoted more than once in Coindesk, a great publication whose reporters Ian Allison and Tracy Wang with editor Nick Baker received a Polk Award for the stories of FTX and its overdependence on its own tokens and Alameda hedge fund.

(And Bravo to Marc who pulled off a roaring success with the conference from what I saw and heard!)

Plenty of prima donna speakers, so many booths, so much swag and sponsor swagger, more parties and side events than you can attend and stay sober, and then non-stop simultaneous sessions produced to within an inch of their lives. One minute I was watching Anthony Scaramucci retell the story he recently told William Cohan in Puck about the end of FTX and his centerpiece role, the next minute the Prime Minister of the Bahamas was standing next to me in the Speaker Lounge.

I arrived in a whirlwind on Wednesday night — we were literally under a tornado warning until 1am Thursday — and went to bed early. You see, the panel I was to moderate had changed from its original conception and the alternative was put together in a pinch to react to some prima donnas who thought they could throw their weight around.

Originally I had been asked to moderate a panel that included two partners, one from Deloitte and one from EY, who would talk about their consulting work with crypto firms. We’d even scheduled a prep call and then something happened. Two weeks ago I received the message that EY’s, and then Deloitte’s, leadership had decided that their firms, and their partners, were at risk if I was moderating the panel. They were worried, perhaps, that they would be embarrassed or worse, have to answer hard questions about their client choices and work. The firms’ Public Policy folks were apparently not ok with their partners’ participation, based on what was perceived to be my critical approach over the years to reporting on the Big 4 and their activities.

Side note: PwC and EY are listed as sponsors of the conference on signs all over the event and on the website, but I did not see Deloitte, or KPMG, listed.

Deloitte may have felt vulnerable because of my extensive reporting on its audits of Coinbase and Circle and my reporting of its consulting activities with FTX.

EY may have felt vulnerable given my reporting of its consulting to FTX and its audit of Block/Square. All of the Big 4 are under scrutiny for so many other consulting, tax and audit engagements.

Of course, the firms mentioned it would be ok if the conference swapped me out for someone they would judge as non-biased. Marc Hochstein and his bosses refused.

So the panel was reconfigured with two top-notch guys who could honestly talk about how to get your crypto project accounting and audit ready.

Sam Leichman of Propeller Industries and Pat White of Bitwave did a great job talking about what it takes to be ready for prime time, and were not afraid to touch on tough topics such as the controversy over customer and stablecoin reserve reports, the FTX “audits”, the challenges of crypto firms operating in a “no accounting standards” world, and the reluctance of the Big 4 audit firms to support crypto founders with audits — despite being very anxious to work with them on consulting and tax — unless they were well-funded and well-connected.

Here’s their parting slide, which should give you an idea of the spirt of support and positivity Sam and Pat brought to the well-attended session. I am always glad to support those who want to help companies do the right thing!

© Francine McKenna, The Digging Company LLC, 2022

NotaBene: I thought the days of the Big 4 firms being afraid of me were over, but they clearly think they can still push people around to crowd me out to protect their tattered reputations. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened, and conference leaders are not always strong enough to resist. But, when you pick a fight with a writer you’d better be ready to have that conflict exposed to the court of public opinion.

“I know what’s right, and I got just one life.”