Why institutions need policy-driven pricing, not just market aggregation
What Price for a Crypto Asset?
Date
Mar 30, 2026
Author
Nazim Morera, Koinju's CEO
When institutions ask for the “price” of a crypto asset, they are often asking the wrong question.
The real question is: which price, for which purpose, under which policy?
In traditional finance, the answer depends on context. A listed equity may use an official closing price. A bond may rely on evaluated pricing. A VWAP may be relevant for execution analysis, but not for fund accounting. In other words, markets do not work with one universal price. They work with different prices for different purposes, each supported by a methodology and an evidence trail.
Crypto raises the same question, but under harder conditions.
Trading is continuous, venue-specific and global. There is no single universally recognised official closing price across crypto markets. Binance, Coinbase and Kraken may all show slightly different prices for the same token at the same moment. Aggregators may publish yet another number, often based on their own source universe, timing and calculation choices. For retail users, that may be sufficient. For institutions, it is not.
Funds, corporates, banks, CASPs and auditors do not just need a number. They need a price that is traceable, reproducible and fit for purpose.
Why pricing is now a control issue
Crypto pricing is no longer a niche market-data problem. It now sits at the intersection of:
valuation and NAV production,
financial reporting,
transaction-time tax reporting,
control frameworks,
and audit evidence.
That means pricing is increasingly judged not only on market relevance, but also on methodology, governance and reproducibility.
A public aggregator can be useful for market colour. But on its own, it usually does not provide the evidence layer institutions need: source selection, venue hierarchy, timestamp policy, filtering logic and replayable calculation logs.
The issue is not whether the displayed price is “close enough”. The issue is whether the institution can explain and defend how that price was produced.
One asset, several valid pricing questions
The same crypto asset can require different pricing approaches depending on the use case.
A period-end fair value requires one type of answer.
A transaction-time valuation for tax or operational reporting requires another.
A challenge procedure may use a benchmark or average-based method.
An illiquid token may require a different hierarchy than a highly traded one.
This is where many discussions become confused. People often compare prices produced for different purposes, and then treat the difference as an error.
Often, it is not an error. It is a policy mismatch.
Fair value is not “just a market average”
Under IFRS 13 and ASC 820, fair value is an exit price in the principal market or, if there is no principal market, the most advantageous market.
In crypto, that immediately raises practical questions:
Which venue is the relevant market?
Does the entity actually have access to it?
Is the market active and orderly?
Should one price be taken at a precise cut-off, or across a defined time window?
Where there is a clearly identifiable active principal market with quoted prices for identical assets, a Level 1 conclusion may remain possible.
But once a price is built from multiple venues, filters or constructed inputs, the evidential question changes.
That is why a simple multi-venue average is not automatically a fair value answer.
It may still be useful as a benchmark or control, but it is not the same thing as a documented exit-price policy.
IFRS and US GAAP are not fully aligned
This is another source of confusion.
Under current IFRS, many holders of crypto assets that are not inventory fall within IAS 38, with IAS 2 applying in some inventory cases. That does not mean all holders are locked into a single “cost minus impairment” outcome in every circumstance. IAS 38 also includes a revaluation model when fair value can be measured by reference to an active market.
Under US GAAP, the direction is clearer: ASU 2023-08 introduced fair value accounting for in-scope crypto assets.
So the direction of travel is evident, but the frameworks are not yet fully converged.
For institutions, this means one thing: even where accounting outcomes differ, the need for high-quality pricing evidence already exists.
When a portfolio manager checks the price of a large listed equity at the end of the day, they usually rely on a recognised official closing price. That price is produced through a documented venue process, at a defined moment, and can be checked against exchange records and vendor distributions.
Now ask: what is the price of Ether?
CoinGecko may show one number. CoinMarketCap another. Binance, Coinbase and Kraken may each display something slightly different. None of these observations is automatically “the” price in the same sense as an official equity close. They are venue prices, snapshots or aggregations, each built differently and governed differently.
This matters because crypto-assets are now appearing in regulated balance sheets, tax reporting and control frameworks. Funds, corporates, CASPs, banks and auditors may all need a price—but not necessarily the same one. The real question is not simply “what is the price?” It is: which price, for which purpose, under which policy?
What a quality crypto price should look like
A quality institutional crypto price should be:
Traceable : clear venue and source history
Reproducible : same policy, same inputs, same result
Configurable : aligned with the use case and valuation policy
Verifiable : capable of being challenged by a third party
Time-specific : tied to the relevant reporting or transaction timestamp
Anomaly-aware : with documented treatment of outliers, stale quotes and thin liquidity
In other words, price is not just data.
It is part of the institution’s control infrastructure.
Why this matters now
The market is moving quickly.
US GAAP has already moved to fair value for in-scope crypto assets. Tax transparency frameworks such as DAC8/CARF are increasing the need for transaction-time valuations. Luxembourg has clarified the route for limited indirect UCITS exposure to crypto assets. And tokenisation is pushing more firms to think about digital assets through the lens of regulated reporting and operational controls.
That makes pricing a strategic problem.
Not because institutions suddenly need one universal crypto price.
But because they need prices they can justify.
The real infrastructure gap
Traditional finance relies on a mature infrastructure of venues, post-trade utilities, custodians, administrators, vendors and auditors.
Crypto still lacks a universally accepted equivalent for many of those evidence layers.
That is why the challenge is not only to collect market data.
It is to turn fragmented market observations into prices that are:
policy-driven,
reproducible,
explainable,
and usable in real reporting and control processes.
That is the gap Koinju is designed to address.
Want to see how your current pricing process measures against institutional standards?
Koinju is a benchmark administrator registered under the EU Benchmarks Regulation (No. BMR2021000001, AMF). Koinju participated in the EFRAG consultations on the accounting treatment of crypto assets in 2021.
References
IFRS 13, Fair Value Measurement - ifrs.org
IAS 2, Inventories (incl. §3(b)) - ifrs.org
IAS 38, Intangible Assets - ifrs.org
IFRS IC, Holdings of Cryptocurrencies, Jun. 2019 - ifrs.org (PDF)
FASB ASU 2023-08, Crypto Assets - fasb.org (PDF)
Dir. (EU) 2023/2226, DAC8/CARF - eur-lex.europa.eu
EFRAG, Discussion Paper, Crypto-Assets, Jul. 2020 - efrag.org (PDF)
CSSF, FAQ Crypto-Assets, UCI, 4 Feb. 2026 - cssf.lu (PDF)