I would like to know if trading with Bitcoin and altcoin to make profit is halal? I've searched for the subject but I only found different opinions for currency trading.

I think that crypto-currency is little bit different, it's not stored in banks, I can keep it in my machine, and trading purposes I had to store my coins in a website then for every exchange there's some fees, these fees differ from one trading platform to another. The fees may be composed of:

  • Fees for exchange which are imposed by the currency.
  • Fees for the website to keep the trading platform running.

This post about bitcoin in islam is quite interesting if you want to read more about the subject1

  • This is interesting. I've never heard about it before. I found the bit-coin forum. For FATWA for this, It's better to wait for the appropriate answer – Fatemeh Jul 9 '14 at 17:01


Other currencies like notes are impossible to trace intrinsically and are essentially contract papers whereas a bitcoin stores the entire transaction history(under the larger bitcoin framework).

Islam requires accountability of the commodity spent and you just cant duplicate currency notes to fulfill demand like how govts do with paper currency. Inbuilt Accountability of bitcoin allows the bitcoin commodity to be traceable and thus cant be duplicated on demand.

Far from haram I would say that bitcoin is the currency best suited according to the laws of Islam which required the currency to have intrinsic value not just a signed piece of paper whose value can be lost due to various circumstances.

The best thing about bitcoin is that it is not controlled by central banks and the bitcoin you possess is the actual "coin" which was virtually mined. So it does have an intrinsic value which is nothing but proportional to the difficulty to mine it. This is similar to how difficult it is to mine real gold.

Also, real currency which Islam allows is deflationary in nature that i.e its value always rises e.g: Gold, the value of gold increases as the resource is limited and is being used up. Whereas in the paper currency its inflationary as more notes a printed to keep up with the demand thus reducing the value per note. The total number of Bitcoins also are limited to a few million hence its value will always rise.

Thus I would even go on to say that using bitcoin is more halal then using currency notes supplied by the reserve banks.

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    so it is fine to trade bitcoin for any other cryptocurrency to gain profit, because they are all cryptocommodities ? – geogeek Jul 11 '14 at 14:27
  • Yes, I believe that is what he is saying. – siphr Oct 27 '17 at 10:29
  • do you have references – shorif2000 Dec 21 '17 at 13:00
  • How do you explain 5pillarsuk.com/2018/01/27/… – shorif2000 Jan 27 '18 at 18:28

Bitcoin is a currency.

You can trade any currency for any others and this is halal.

The value of a currency is not fixed. The value may go up or may go down for many reasons in the view of other currencies. If you buy a currency with another one and the value of the currency that you bought raise it means that you gained profit.

Some persons may not like that people use the currencies that governments cannot see and trace it. Bitcoin can be in ownership of a person and that person can decide what to do with that.

Trading in some cases is not halal. When trade something that is not halal like buying goods that you know they are stolen. When the result of trading damages the Islamic society and you may know about it (Ayatollah Shirazi and his verdict against tobacco). When the trading is result to riba gain that is not halal. For example if someone gives another person amount of money and sell a goods like a chocolate for it's interest of the money that he gave the other one and the one who got the money in the debt of the first one for the money and the chocolate that he bought it is riba. (suppose the chocolate worth 1$ but he bought that 1000$)

As gaining profit in forex is halal if you gain profit from the raising value of bitcoin that you have you gain a halal profit. If you are shia you must remember you should pay your Khums as the bitcoin is in your ownership and you must calculate the value of those amount of bitcoin that you have.

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    so in your answer we are considering bitcoin as any currency , so we can trade bitcoin for any other currency. can you please provide references about currency trading if halal or not because, i've found different interpretations of currency trading. – geogeek Jul 10 '14 at 23:58

Bitcoin does have intrinsic value as it is based on proof of work (value), therefore I see it as halal (except of course if charging interest). Don't forget that you can be paid halal fees (in any currency) for providing a service (work/value). In fact, as I understand it, the blockchain is technology that records proof of work.

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Bit coin is the virtual currency so how is it halal? I also opened an account for bit coin but i need to pay dolor to buy bit coin and it will only show me number of bit coin in my account rather i get it in physical form. So such trading is not as per Islam.

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    Are you getting your salary in cash... most people I know don't? AFAIK what you describe applies for any other currency no matter if it is virtual or real! – Medi1Saif Oct 27 '17 at 9:00
