Thoughts Regarding Valuation of Crypto-Currency Assets:

1. Should those assets be valued at the specific time of acquisition? What if there are no other exchanges of bitcoin at the time of acquisition or divestment of those assets? Should the industry adopt a single time of valuation like the London Spot Fix time?(NOTE: Since the initial publication of this blog on 10/11/16, it appears that someone has tried to create tried to create a Bitcoin Reference Rate.)
2. Should valuation be based upon the prices displayed at a single exchange or a composite of exchanges?
3. Should the data provided by exchanges be weighted by trading volume on that exchange?
4. Should the exchanges used be limited to US exchanges only, or include international exchanges? Should that data be weighted or adjusted somehow by location?
5. Should trade data be weighted based upon quantity traded? For example, if a party obtains 50 bitcoin, should a contemporaneous 0.3 bitcoin trade be weighted less than a contemporaneous 65 bitcoin trade?
6. Because sales of crypto-currency are contingent upon the availability of trading partners (i.e. matching buyer and seller), valuation is highly volatile and time-sensitive. Should consideration be given to exchanges that are located in jurisdictions where the exchange occurs during the day (i.e. where volumes are presumed to be higher) rather than at night (presuming that daytime trading hours have a higher volume than nighttime trading, but some exchanges are in China and some in the US)?
7. It is well known that large volume transactions occur through private brokers- should this impact valuation by exchanges? Is there any way to access and incorporate this information into valuation models?
8. Should specific identification of bitcoin transfers as FIFO or LIFO be used? Does it matter if the actual wallet follows LIFO/FIFO if the valuation model requires one or the other? Should wallet behavior be forced to conform to the prevailing regulation?
9. Are crypto-for-crypto exchanges qualified to be 1031 exchanges or are they considered selling coinA for USD and then buying coinB with that USD?