New cryptos based on Islamic finance are being introduced by businesses that claim that their checks and balances can help restore faith in the industry. The Muslim-focused asset said it will be able to scale like Bitcoin (BTC) and hit the equivalent of more than $1 trillion in value.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was charged in November in the United States with defrauding investors and stealing billions from customers before declaring bankruptcy, raising transparency concerns.
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According to Mohammed AlKaff AlHashmi, co-founder and chief business officer of Haqq Association, a nonprofit digital financial services company that follows Islamic law, Islamic Coin is the native token of Haqq, the proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that operates on Cosmos via the EVMOS protocol. Translated as “truth” in Arabic, Haqq “stringently abides by Islamic views and traditions on finance.”
The Islamic coin was created with the intention of providing a tool for the global Muslim faithful to participate in the digital economy. Islamic Coin is described as a Halal asset that is Shariah compliant.
This means that it adheres to the fundamental principles that guide Islamic life and, by extension law, in matters of morality and modesty. According to AlHashmi, the Islamic Coin was created specifically to facilitate charitable acts.
“With nearly 2 billion followers, Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, accounting for roughly a quarter of the world’s population,” AlHashmi noted.
“Muslims make up a majority of the population in 47 countries, and we designed Islamic Coin to deliver a lasting, powerful impact for one of the largest communities in the world,” added AlHashmi.
In May, Islamic Coin was launched on the Haqq blockchain. Muslim leaders issued a religious declaration, or “Fatwa,” to the token in June. This confirmed that it met the religious standard that forbids things like gambling. Muslims were thus free to interact with the coin.
Islamic Coin raised $200 million in a private sale one month later. This is considered remarkable in a bear market.
Although still in its infancy, the Islamic fintech market, currently valued at $79 billion, is expected to grow at an 18 percent annual rate, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, the UAE, Turkey, and Indonesia accounting for 81 percent of the total market size, according to the 2022 Global Islamic Report by financial services companies DinarStandard and Elipses.
Noteworthy that the crypto market was worth more than $2 trillion in January 2022, but by the end of December, it had fallen to an all-time low of around $800 billion.
