Fatwa about investing in B4U Global Trades (Cryptocurrency)
NOTE: It should be noted that the below answer is the English translation of the Fatwa issued by Jamia Uloom Islamia Allama Yusuf Banuri Town, Karachi, Pakistan.
Question
There is a company called B4U Global Trades. This company offers two types of investment.
1- Fixed profit: in this kind of investment your profit will be fixed.
2- your profit will not be fixed, it will be variable sometimes less and sometimes more.
The question is, what is the ruling on this kind of investment in this company?
Answer
According to the information obtained from the website of the said company, B4U Global Trades is doing business through cryptocurrency (digital currency), cryptocurrency is not yet approved by the government of Pakistan; At present, the legitimacy and illegitimacy of this currency have been put on hold, and so far the scholars have not given permission to buy and sell it. Therefore until all the aspects of the said company are fully clarified, the second type of investment which has been asked in the question(ie, in which the profit is not fixed) should also be avoided, while the first type in which the profit is fixed is absolutely not permissible.
Also, in other cases where the profit is not fixed, a more clear ruling can be given by looking at the details and conditions of the case, etc., because the legitimacy of the profit depends not only on its condition whether it’s fixed or not but on other shariah limits and conditions also. For example, sometimes a company pays a profit of seven to twenty percent of the invested money, while it is not permissible to determine the profit for the invested money in terms of the percentage.
Regardless of the cryptocurrency, it should be noted that the buying and selling of the currency must be in cash (hand in hand) and both parties must have physical possession of the currency while making the contract, which means that keeping this condition online purchase and sale of the currency is almost non-existent.