Question: Is it allowed to deal with a currency called Bitcoin currency? It is a cryptocurrency and global payment system except that this currency is completely electronic. It is traded on the internet only, without a real or tangible presence. It is a digital decentralized currency. It is operates without a centralized depository?
Answer: “It is not allowed to deal with that company. It is a bubble company whose origin is not known. They do not gurantee you the money [you invest]. In it is obscurity and a lot of gharar [uncertainty]. For verily, a person pays his money and then it goes away. [It is reported that]:
نهى النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم عن الغرر
The Prophet forbade gharar (uncertain transactions)
Reported by Muslim on the authority of Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him)
It is consuming the wealth [of others] in falsehood. So perhaps a person will pay some money, then it will leave and he will not know who demands it [from him]. He pays money via the internet or computers and there is no real angle which it is possible to rule if they [the company] take money from him or dispose it in impermissible means, or whether they deal with usury. Rather he himself does not know the dealings which they deal with. So it is an unlawful dealing from many angles: from the angle of gharar [uncertainty], the angle of obscurity, the angle of paying his wealth to an unknown party and it is not secure from being used in unlawful things. So the affairs connected to prohibition of this dealing are many. So it is not permissible to deal with it. Thus, it is obligatory to hold back [from it] because its obscurity is from the most severe types of obscurity in financial transactions”.
[Source]
Translated by
Faisal bin Abdul Qaadir bin Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan
