가상화폐에 대한 이슬람 샤리아의 관점

A Study on Perspective of Islamic Sharīah on Virtual Currency

Virtual currency is a kind of digital currencies based on the networks to alternate the traditional money. However the main difference between digital currency and virtual currency is that virtual currency does not take effect as a legal tender. It realizes some certain characters as high liquidity, low transaction fee, anonymity and so on more than any other currencies. Therefore it drives us to the idea there are some possibilities to replace the traditional money. But virtual currency like Bitcoin has to overcome the strong barrier of traditional trust in the money to replace the traditional money. From the point of view of Islamic Economy, the money is just one of means of payment and it never increase in value with the passage of time. This kind increase is called ribā. Shariah of Islam prohibits selling something not possessed in hand and strictly handling ribā during the money transaction and commercial transaction. This article is approaching with a perspective of Sharīah on Virtual Currency which has became big issue to us since the emergence of Bitcoin.