Analytical Study of Usury in Cryptocurrency Transactions (Bitcoin Case Study)

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, as an emerging and developing phenomenon, have attracted the attention of Islamic scholars, therefore, researches were conducted on its nature and rules from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence. This article, while discussing the nature of Bitcoin transactions, has investigated the existence of usury, including transactional usury and loan usury, in such exchanges, using analytical-descriptive method and jurisprudential modeling of this cryptocurrency transactions. From the point of view of transactional usury, according to the conditions stated in the validity of this title, including the conditions of exchange and also the validity of the title of sale in the transaction, the ruling of usury in Bitcoin exchanges was investigated and the following results were obtained in summary: From the point of view of some scholars, the nature of Bitcoin is commodity, and from the point of view of others, it is known as credit. In this article, based on both approaches, the possibility of transactional and loan usury was investigated. From the point of view of the authors of the article, according to the view of Bitcoin traders, the nature of Bitcoin is a combination of commodity and credit. As a result, buying and selling it together with excess in exchange for Bitcoin as being the same kind would not be usury due to the absence of measurement and weight conditions. From the point of view of loan usury, since any type of loan with excess is considered usury, there is usury if bitcoin is considered as commodity. From the credit point of view, usury can be visualized due to the fact that Bitcoin conventionally represents the dollar value.

Keywords

• cryptocurrency
• usury
• transactional usury
• loan usury
• bitcoin
• cheque
• virtual currency