Developing a Sharīah-compliant precious metal backed cryptocurrency

الملخص EN

Under the fiat standard, money is no longer backed by any assets, but rather it is backed by debt.

The implication of such a system is the emergence of many socio-economic problems.

Restoring the value of money has long been a controversial topic, hampered in part by the lack of theoretical and empirical evidences.

Therefore, this research aims to develop a Sharīʿah-compliant precious metal backed crypto-currency (PMBC) mechanism.

To achieve this, a general product development process is adopted, which consists of four phases involving planning, concept development, system-level design, and testing.

In addition, Sharīʿah scholars and financial experts were interviewed to validate the mechanism theoretically.

The result of this research was to introduce a Sharīʿah-compliant PMBC where the description and the modus operandi of the PMBC were presented.

This research defined PMBC as a digital currency, backed by precious metals that uses strong cryptography.

It is designed to fulfill all the functions of money in accordance with Sharīʿah while operating as a peer-to-peer payment system.

Overall, it was found that all the resources needed to develop and implement PMBC are already available.

The scholars and experts interviewed supported the implementation of PMBC, but there are a variety of challenges and reservations.