Digital Banking and Fintech

Shariah texts forbid deferment of both counter values in the commutative transactions. However, it is obvious that contemporary juristic opinions abide by this prohibition without appreciating its Shariah objectives. This is evident as some of these opinions unjustifiably differentiate between similar applications, or they violate the prohibition by allowing stratagems that eventually lead to having both values deferred.

Bitcoin, as the first decentralized cryptocurrency, pioneers the cryptocurrency markets, both in terms of market capitalization and scientific interest. In this paper, we performed a comprehensive bibliometric study of the Bitcoin-related literature. Using the Scopus database, we created a sample that comprises 4495 documents written in the 2011–2020 period.

This paper explores the applicability of universal cryptocurrency exchange by analyzing crypto exchanges of Binance, Latoken, Kucoin, and Qash, which also have their own cryptocurrencies in the crypto market. Results of the recursive Johansen cointegration test proved that even though all of the cryptocurrencies have cointegration among each other, Binance positively disassociated itself from others after it moved to Malta on 23 March 2018.

The main aim of this article is to examine the inter-relationships among the top cryptocurrencies on the crypto stock market in the presence and absence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nine chosen cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Eos, BitcoinCash, Binance, Stellar, and Tron and their daily closing price data are captured from coinmarketcap over the period from 13 September 2017 to 21 September 2020.

Undoubtedly, the emergence of cryptocurrencies has imposed the challenge of addressing their Shariah issues. These issues include the very permissibility of their issuance in view of the fact that they are not backed by real valuable assets or supervised by financial authorities, which makes their holders vulnerable to possible fraud and manipulative fluctuations in their values.

فرض ظهور العملات الرقمية المشفرة تحديات جديدة على فقه الاقتصاد الإسلامي، فقد شاع الاتجار والتعامل بهذه العملات في الآونة الأخيرة على نحو يستدعي بيان الحكم الشرعي فيها. وبيان الحكم الشرعي يستدعي فهم ماهية هذه العملات، وخصائصها، وأوجه التعامل بها، وأبعادها الإقتصادية. وتشمل أحكامها الشرعية تعامل الناس بها تداولا وتجارة، وما إذا كانت الشريعة تعترف بثمنيتها فتأخذ أحكام النقود، فتخضع لأحكام الربا الخاصة بالعملات وبالذهب والفضة.