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Monday afternoon at the SouthBySouthwest conference in Austin, Texas, featured one of the many discussions at the conference of the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Among the presentations was a talk by accounting ace Jake Benson, founder of a startup called LibraTax.

Benson, in a bravura performance filled with self-deprecating humor about accounting, argues that Bitcoin is "just a system of accounting, nothing more."

Benson, after walking through highlights of the 7,000-year history of accounting, noted the fundamental transforming moment -- the "most important day in accounting history" -- the 14th-century invention of double-entry accounting by the Italian Luca Pacioli.

The so-called BlockChain system of computer records that underlies Bitcoin's use is just a form of ledger deriving from the same principles as the double-entry ledger of 700 years ago.

The BlockChain helps keep a record of every Bitcoin transaction in the world. And all transactions are balanced, with no number of Bitcoins in world circulation ever exceeding the specified maximum number of 21 million Bitcoins.

Although this presages the "disruption of accounting" by computers, Benson smiled when I asked him if there might still be a role for human accountants to find loopholes in BlockChain's pristine honesty. He noted that although computers can tally all transactions, they won't always know the nature of the transaction, because "metadata" is limited. So, a transaction that is actually a gift, for example, could be disguised by an individual as payment of a creditor.

In concluding his talk, Benson mused about whether BlockChain could be the beginning of something big in accounting: a triple-entry ledger. "BlockChain gives us a public book of all Bitcoin transactions," said Benson. "What if there could be another public book, beyond just Bitcoin," meaning a ledger that would tally and keep public all transactions, including traditional real currency.

Update: A full copy of the deck of slides is offered in a follow-up post.