AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Senior Shia source of emulation Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, in response to a question about games such as Nutcoin and Hamster and possible income from these types of currencies, stated,” Trading, investment, and income from these types of currencies are not allowed.”
The text of the religious inquiry and His Excellency’s answer regarding new digital currencies such as Nutcoin is as follows:
Question:
During the last month, different games such as Nutcoin, Hamster, etc. have been launched on the Telegram platform, attracting the attention of a significant part of the Iranian population. According to the promise given by the managers of these games, after gaining points in the form of coins, these coins will be priced and can be bought and sold. For example, one of these games completed its processes and finally became a digital currency; some people have already benefited from it.
In your opinion, is participation in these programs and possible earning from this method allowed or not?
Response:
Considering the many uncertainties that these types of currencies have, such as the fact that the origin of its extraction is not clear, and its validity is often not accepted by governments, and it has also become the source of many abuses, trading, investment, and income from them is not permissible.
Digital cash, like any other new phenomenon, has its pros and cons. However, contemporary Shiite sources of emulation opinion differ in this regard; some, like Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani and Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei have expressed their views on the issue in such a way that taking the current literature on Islamic Jurisprudence into account, their opinions could be construed as follows:” Should the followers of these two Grand Ayatollahs want to make any transaction through Bitcoin, they need to act based on the fatwa of the next source of emulation whom they may choose to follow”. In other words, the office of the Iranian Supreme leader has neither confirmed nor denied the use of Bitcoin for business transactions (Istifta (asking for a fatwa on a given topic)), but Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani’s office with its special language on some topics such as network marketing, says: “the Ayatollah does not permit such a transaction”.
However, some of the jurists such as Ayatollah Shobeiri Zanja believe that if the following two conditions are met, transactions through Bitcoin are permissible: first, any credit must be earned in return for a religiously allowed activity, i.e. the individual’s credits in this form of investment should be increased not through fraud or illegal activities, but based on religiously allowed ones; and second, the transactions based on this type of digital currency must not be against the common rules and regulations of the country in which the deal is made.
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