Mustafa Umar – Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency in Islamic Law

Mustafa Umar
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The speakers stress the complexities of cryptocurrency and its use by Muslim Congress, emphasizing the importance of verifiable reasons and a strong legal framework for cryptocurrency trading. They caution against being too cautious and emphasize the potential risks of reducing volatility and the need for strong mentality and research on issues like Islamic research. They stress the importance of understanding the dynamics of cryptocurrency trading and caution against being too cautious.

AI: Summary ©

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			Up to
		
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			the recorder.
		
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			Alright.
		
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			Alright. Bismillah rahmanirrahim.
		
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			Alhamdulillah. Wassalaat wa salaamu ala rasulillah
		
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			waba.
		
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			So today's topic is gonna be,
		
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			a topic on a contemporary issue, and that
		
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			is specifically on cryptocurrency.
		
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			And we're gonna be talking about Bitcoin, which
		
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			is one of the first cryptocurrencies
		
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			or decentralized cryptocurrencies that was formed.
		
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			And this is a topic that people a
		
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			lot of people have been asking about.
		
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			But I just wanna get a quick, you
		
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			know,
		
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			gauge of the audience. How many of you
		
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			are familiar with cryptocurrency?
		
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			Okay. So quite a few people, especially on
		
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			the men's side.
		
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			How many of you feel that you really
		
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			understand how cryptocurrency
		
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			works very well?
		
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			Almost nobody. Okay. That's good. So that's insha'Allah
		
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			what we're gonna try to do. But this
		
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			program today insha'allah, it's not just about
		
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			the question, is bitcoin halal? So this is
		
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			the first question that many people will be
		
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			asking. And what's happened is since 2017,
		
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			this is a common question that Muslim scholars
		
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			are getting.
		
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			Is Bitcoin halal or is Bitcoin haram?
		
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			And I don't simply want to give an
		
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			answer to that. It's not a yes or
		
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			no answer. It's not a it's a halal
		
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			or it's a haram quest you know, answer.
		
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			But instead, in this session, we want to
		
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			see how a Muslim scholar
		
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			or Muslim scholars
		
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			try to process issues
		
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			which they've never come across before.
		
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			And so this is not just gonna be
		
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			giving you an answer about bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
		
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			It's gonna teach you something about how Islamic
		
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			law functions,
		
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			how it's more complex than many people actually
		
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			think,
		
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			and what are some mistakes that people will
		
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			make along the way because they don't have
		
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			a good understanding of of how the Sharia
		
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			or how Islamic law is supposed to be
		
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			processed.
		
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			So we're gonna do that in this exercise
		
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			while looking at cryptocurrency
		
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			as an example
		
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			of how a new issue like this should
		
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			be processed. Because there's many new issues coming
		
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			out. There's cloning, there's stem cell research,
		
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			so many issues in biomedical ethics, so many
		
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			issues in economics, this being one of them.
		
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			There's issues in morality, there's issues in, you
		
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			know, so many things that we've never seen
		
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			before. You know, what are you gonna do
		
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			when,
		
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			you know, which direction do you pray with
		
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			if you're in outer space? You know, all
		
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			these things which
		
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			you won't find a an answer
		
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			from a scholar that lived in the 19th
		
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			century or maybe even in the 20th century
		
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			because they never faced these issues. So there's
		
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			a way to process these things. So I
		
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			wanna,
		
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			talk about cryptocurrency,
		
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			but at the same time,
		
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			kind of make you understand the process
		
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			through which Muslim scholars are supposed to be
		
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			going through or going through to understand this,
		
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			and then you maybe will appreciate better Islamic
		
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			law.
		
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			And also you'll appreciate
		
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			why it takes some time
		
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			before
		
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			clear answers are formulated.
		
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			And sometimes, you know, people may jump the
		
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			gun and then modify their fatwa later on
		
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			because they understood things in a different light
		
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			afterwards. So that's what we're gonna try to
		
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			do today. So the first question is, is
		
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			Bitcoin halal? So when somebody asks a Muslim
		
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			scholar this question,
		
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			the first thought
		
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			of a Muslim scholar in their mind
		
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			is going to be to question the question
		
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			that was asked.
		
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			That's the first thing that they're supposed to
		
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			do, and we're trained that way, and rightfully
		
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			so. So what kind of questions are we
		
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			gonna ask as scholars
		
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			when this person asked a question about whether
		
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			bitcoin or cryptocurrency
		
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			is halal. The first question we ask is
		
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			what caused this person to ask this question?
		
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			What is the reason why
		
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			they asked this question? Like, what's the motive
		
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			behind asking it? That's very important to understand
		
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			before you can give that person an answer.
		
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			The second question that we're gonna ask is,
		
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			what exactly is bitcoin? Right? And how does
		
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			it work? Somebody asked, you know, is it
		
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			halal? So, okay. Well, what exactly is it?
		
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			Do I fully understand exactly how it works
		
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			and how it functions?
		
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			And then the third question they're gonna ask
		
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			is once we have a good understanding,
		
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			are there elements that we know already in
		
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			the principles of Islamic law
		
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			that we can apply
		
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			to say that there are some haram elements
		
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			or forbidden elements inside this thing that the
		
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			person is asking. And of course, we're gonna
		
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			see how this person is gonna use that
		
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			as well. So this is what goes through
		
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			a scholar's mind. Okay? And they ask more
		
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			questions than this. I'm just summarizing
		
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			it. Now there are some mistakes.
		
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			Some mistakes can be made
		
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			when giving an answer to a question on
		
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			Islamic law or about the Sharia
		
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			for a number of reasons.
		
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			Common mistake number 1 is that the scholar
		
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			or the person being asked does not understand
		
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			the motive of the person.
		
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			And it's very important to answer according to
		
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			the motive.
		
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			So I'll give you an example. One of
		
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			the great companions, the scholars among the companions,
		
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			Abdullah ibn Abbas,
		
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			he was asked by a person.
		
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			He says, if somebody commits murder in Islam,
		
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			and then they ask Allah for forgiveness,
		
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			can Allah forgive them?
		
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			And he said,
		
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			no. So his students were shocked.
		
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			And they after the guy left, they said,
		
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			how can you say that? You know, imam,
		
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			we learn in the Quran that Allah subhanahu
		
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			wa ta'ala can forgive any other sins besides
		
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			associating partners with Allah. Why did you say
		
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			that? He said, because I saw in this
		
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			guys in this in this guy's eyes evil.
		
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			What did that mean? Meaning, this guy
		
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			was not asking me a question because he
		
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			wanted to know the theoretical answer in Islam.
		
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			This guy wanted to kill someone.
		
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			And he asked me the question with the
		
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			motive that if I say, yes, you know,
		
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			if you ask Allah sincerely,
		
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			then Allah will forgive you, the guy will
		
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			go and kill someone.
		
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			And I could see it in his eyes.
		
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			Therefore, I gave him an answer that was
		
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			appropriate for his circumstance because of the dire
		
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			consequences that would result.
		
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			So understanding the motive of the question
		
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			is really important as well.
		
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			And when it comes to cryptocurrency
		
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			and bitcoin and things like that, understanding the
		
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			motive of why people are asking this question
		
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			is extremely important.
		
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			So one question we have to ask
		
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			is that bitcoin was introduced
		
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			in January of 2009.
		
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			You ask any Muslim scholars,
		
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			nobody was asked in 2009
		
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			about bitcoin,
		
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			2,010,
		
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			2011,
		
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			2012. Almost nobody is asking.
		
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			All the questions come in in 2017.
		
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			Why in 2017?
		
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			Because in in the beginning of 2,000 and
		
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			17, Bitcoin was valued at $1,000.
		
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			One Bitcoin was a $1,000.
		
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			By the end, it jumped to $11,000.
		
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			So it became something that people wanted to
		
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			trade speculatively
		
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			on. Right? So that's people wanted to just
		
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			make some money off of it. That's why
		
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			all of a sudden became very popular. So
		
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			the question is not so much about the
		
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			technology,
		
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			what are the pros and the cons of
		
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			the technology. Nowadays,
		
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			the question why many people are asking
		
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			about bitcoin specifically
		
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			is because they see it as a way
		
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			to make some money
		
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			quick, and a lot of money, potentially. Right?
		
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			And there's a lot of people who made
		
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			a lot of money, there's a lot of
		
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			people who lost a lot of money. So
		
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			that's reason number 1. And I think in
		
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			America,
		
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			most people are asking the question due to,
		
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			you know, investing or speculation on the currency
		
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			trading.
		
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			The second type of people who ask the
		
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			question are people who live in countries, primarily
		
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			Muslim predominant countries,
		
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			which are really at the
		
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			the cutting edge of trying to develop an
		
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			alternative Islamic finance product.
		
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			Right? Or an Islamic
		
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			economy
		
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			that is closer to Sharia standards than than
		
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			anywhere else. An example of that would be
		
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			like Malaysia.
		
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			Right? So when people ask the same question
		
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			in Malaysia, they're not just interested in making
		
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			a trade. They're asking because this Islamic finance
		
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			industry is booming in certain countries, and people
		
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			are trying to come up with innovative ways
		
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			to develop something which would be a currency
		
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			that is closer to being in line with
		
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			Islamic principles. And this is something which many
		
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			people are interested in. They're interested in blockchain
		
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			technology and all of that. They'd rather have
		
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			something that's either tied to gold or not
		
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			so much riba based, interest based type currency.
		
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			So there's 2 different motives. The motive of
		
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			the average, I would say, the average American
		
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			is usually in the first category. Right? So
		
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			understanding the motive
		
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			is gonna help you give the answer
		
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			in terms of what exactly do you intend
		
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			to do
		
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			with your answer of is Bitcoin halal or
		
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			haram?
		
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			So we have to understand that clearly. The
		
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			second common mistake
		
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			is,
		
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			allowing the questioner
		
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			to explain
		
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			how something works. And this is something which
		
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			scholars may make a mistake in. So someone
		
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			will come to someone who like a scholar,
		
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			for example, who's never heard of bitcoin or
		
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			cryptocurrency.
		
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			And the person will ask, is it halal?
		
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			And they'll say, okay, well, why don't you
		
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			tell me how it works? They'll say, well,
		
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			it's the electronic system where you can send
		
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			this to or you send money to another
		
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			person, and this and that. And then the
		
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			way the person will explain it,
		
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			based upon the explanation
		
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			of that person,
		
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			the scholar will give an answer.
		
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			But that person may not be giving an
		
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			accurate explanation
		
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			of that thing.
		
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			And that's a common mistake that happens. Right?
		
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			So that's one issue. And another issue in
		
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			this field is if the scholar who's trying
		
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			to, you know, give an answer, they they
		
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			try to understand
		
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			some new technology, whether it's cloning or cryptocurrency
		
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			or whatever it is, but they don't fully
		
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			understand how it functions.
		
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			Because
		
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			it's not so much their field or they've
		
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			read a paper on it, there's some debate
		
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			on it, and they read the wrong paper,
		
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			or they read the wrong papers, or read
		
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			the wrong research.
		
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			It's gonna lead them to give an incorrect
		
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			answer on that, and then you may end
		
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			up finding that they changed their position several
		
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			years later because they have a different understanding
		
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			of it. So that's problem or mistake number
		
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			2. That's very common. Mistake number 3
		
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			is that the scholar
		
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			may not
		
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			understand the underlying philosophy of the Islamic economic
		
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			principles,
		
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			that they were taught in their seminary education.
		
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			K. Now, I'm I'm not trying to, you
		
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			know, criticize
		
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			scholars and their education. But the reality is,
		
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			if you ask the average person who's graduating
		
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			from a Muslim seminary, you say,
		
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			the way that you studied wudu,
		
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			the way that you studied salah, the way
		
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			that you studied fasting in Ramadan,
		
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			the way that you study all these rules,
		
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			how
		
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			how much depth in-depth did you go into
		
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			the economic parts of studying the hadith, and
		
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			the verses of the Quran, and the principles,
		
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			and and how well were you able to
		
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			understand that in light of
		
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			modern economic practices.
		
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			And I think many scholars would honestly tell
		
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			you that that's not something that we're very
		
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			strong in, because our curriculum
		
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			is not very strong in that either.
		
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			Right? And that's unfortunately one of the problems
		
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			where it becomes difficult for asking an average
		
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			person who's considered to be a sheikh, or
		
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			an imam, or whatever it is. They have
		
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			a seminary education. They have a degree in
		
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			Islamic law, in Sharia,
		
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			but they may not be very strong
		
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			either in understanding the principles or applying the
		
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			principles to modern day economic realities. Because that's
		
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			not their field, and they didn't specialize in
		
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			that really.
		
00:11:40 --> 00:11:41
			So that's problem,
		
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			number 3. K. So these are some common
		
00:11:44 --> 00:11:45
			mistakes
		
00:11:45 --> 00:11:46
			that are made,
		
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48
			and you have to understand that, and you
		
00:11:48 --> 00:11:50
			have to understand that may be something that
		
00:11:50 --> 00:11:54
			can potentially change things. K? So with that
		
00:11:54 --> 00:11:56
			said, let's move on to principles. So a
		
00:11:56 --> 00:11:57
			scholar gets asked a question,
		
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01
			is Bitcoin halal? Is Bitcoin haram or whatever
		
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			it is? The first thing is they go
		
00:12:02 --> 00:12:03
			back to certain is
		
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			or certain Islamic principles, principles in Islamic law.
		
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			One of the principles in Islamic law, which
		
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			maybe many Muslims don't know,
		
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			but it's very important to know, is that
		
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			the default
		
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			in Sharia, the default is that everything is
		
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			halal
		
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			unless it can be proven to be haram.
		
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			Some people think the opposite actually, right? Because
		
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			they feel like everything is made haram until
		
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			we can prove it's halal. Maybe that's you
		
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			feel that way because of the attitude of
		
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			some people, or certain discussions you had, or
		
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			maybe you always wanna just do haram things
		
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			and that's why it feels that way. Whatever
		
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			reason it is, you may feel that way,
		
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			but the actual principle that is agreed upon
		
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			by all Muslim scholars, there's no debate about
		
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			this. Alright. That pretty much in everything, for
		
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			the most part, is that the default position
		
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			of something new
		
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			is that it's halal, unless you can prove
		
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			that it's haram. You don't have to prove
		
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			that it's halal. You have to prove that
		
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			it's haram in order for it to be
		
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			haram or prohibited in Islam.
		
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			One ex just to give you a random
		
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			example, you know.
		
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13
			Anyone been to an oxygen bar?
		
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			It's not a bar. Okay? So you're gonna
		
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			be like, astaghfirullah.
		
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			You think I'm gonna raise my hand in
		
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			the masjid that I went to a bar?
		
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			An oxygen bar is where you just inhale
		
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			oxygen, it's like flavored oxygen.
		
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			Has anyone seen an oxygen bar? Has anyone
		
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			seen flavored oxygen?
		
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			A few people. So this is like it's
		
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			a pretty it's not a new trend really.
		
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			It's been around for like over a decade,
		
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			maybe 15 years or 20 years now. There
		
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			are there are bars,
		
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			they don't sell alcohol at all, they're called
		
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			oxygen bars. You go in there, you put
		
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			on a little mask or you put something
		
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			over your mouth, and you inhale flavored oxygen.
		
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			Now this is not something that people used
		
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			to do in the past. Right? Inhaling oxygen
		
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			and, you know, this is like something you
		
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			sit down and you do.
		
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			But there's oxygen bars and they're in many
		
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			different places, and people inhale that. So the
		
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			first time someone comes across this and you
		
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			say, hey, is that halal?
		
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			The word, it's a bar. You know, how
		
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			can you go into a bar? Well, the
		
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			bar is not serving alcohol, number 1. Number
		
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			2, no one has ever inhaled oxygen before.
		
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			So this is a question that no one
		
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			has, you know, really come across before. A
		
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			scholar would never have come across this.
		
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			So but the first thing in their mind
		
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			is not,
		
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			don't go there until we can prove that
		
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			it's halal.
		
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			The first thing in their mind is,
		
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			this is should be halal
		
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			unless we can find something that is haram
		
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			in it.
		
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			And that's how they apply the principle. That's
		
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			how scholars think, and they're supposed to think,
		
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			and that's how they're trained. It may not
		
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			feel that way for some of you depending
		
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			on where you come from and who you
		
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			interact with, but that's the reality. That's how
		
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			every single scholar is trained, and no one
		
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			is gonna disagree on this. Right, Khaleel? This
		
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			is this is the principle. Right? This is
		
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			the general principle that we learn in seminaries.
		
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			So that's the way we should be dealing
		
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			with things. So that's principle number 1. So
		
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			the first thing is when it comes to
		
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			Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, it's brand new. Before we understand
		
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05
			it, we say, okay, this might be just
		
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			fine.
		
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			Let's see if we can identify anything clear
		
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			cut that causes it to be prohibited or
		
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			or haram in Islam. So then we have
		
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			2 more principles. Alright?
		
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			The first principle
		
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			is
		
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			what this is an kind of an economic
		
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			transaction when it comes to currency and economics.
		
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			So in economics,
		
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			there are two main principles that could make
		
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			a transaction
		
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			That's the only thing that can pretty much
		
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			cause it to be
		
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			It either has elements of riba,
		
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			riba is interest,
		
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			or it has elements of
		
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			Alright?
		
00:15:41 --> 00:15:43
			Means something that is,
		
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			there's uncertainty
		
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			or a high level of uncertainty in it.
		
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			Or if something is like, for example, there's
		
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			unknown, there's something is uncertain.
		
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			So if you look at all the rules
		
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			pertaining to Islamic economics,
		
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			it's gotta have either riba or ghur inside
		
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			of it in order to be prohibited. Otherwise,
		
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			most likely,
		
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			it's going to be considered
		
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			halal or permissible in Islam. K? So I'm
		
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			gonna
		
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			go into a little bit of detail here
		
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			because I know this is being recorded, other
		
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			people are watching this. Even some scholars are
		
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			gonna be watching this later, so I'm gonna
		
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			do a little bit more detail, so bear
		
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			with me. So a scholar will go back
		
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			to his books, and they'll open up some
		
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			of their books on Islamic law, their books
		
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			of fiqh, and they start to go and
		
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			say, okay, well, let's look at some of
		
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			these principles. Let's see how some of these
		
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			principles apply. So among the principles that they're
		
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			gonna look at, they'll go to a book
		
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			like this.
		
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			This is a book called by
		
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			Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd is a famous scholar
		
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			by the name of Averroes.
		
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			He's known among non Muslims in in universities.
		
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			He's famous for being a philosopher,
		
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			translated the works of Aristotle and, you know,
		
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			not translated, but he commented on the works
		
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			of Aristotle.
		
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			But he's also a Muslim jurist. He's a
		
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			he's a specialist in Sharia as well. So
		
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			he has this book. Here's a translation for
		
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			you.
		
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			So bear with me, but he kind of
		
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			goes to the philosophy
		
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			of how economics works in Islam. So I'm
		
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			gonna give a little bit explanation of this
		
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			here. He says each transaction between 2 individuals
		
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			is an exchange.
		
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			So what is an exchange? It's when you
		
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			when you transact between 2 individuals,
		
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			either of corporeal property for corporeal
		
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			meaning an actual object for an object,
		
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			or of corporeal property and object for a
		
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			corresponding
		
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			liability.
		
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			Right? For I'll do some favor to you,
		
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			or I owe you money, or something like
		
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			that.
		
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			Or
		
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			of a liability for another liability.
		
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			So it could be a debt for a
		
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			debt, or I'll do you a favor and
		
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			then you do me a favor later. It
		
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			says each one of these 3 is either
		
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			delayed or immediate.
		
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			So when you trade something, either you do
		
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			it immediately, you trade right now, or it's
		
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			delayed. So you can say, I'm gonna give
		
00:17:50 --> 00:17:51
			you this now, you give me that later.
		
00:17:51 --> 00:17:54
			Or we'll both delay this trade later. And
		
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			then he says
		
00:17:55 --> 00:17:56
			where'd it go?
		
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			Or is immediate,
		
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01
			sorry. Each one of these, again, is either
		
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			immediate for both parties,
		
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			or delayed for both parties, or immediate for
		
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			one party and delayed for the other party.
		
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			You can see he's a philosopher. He looks
		
00:18:10 --> 00:18:12
			at every single potential scenario that could happen.
		
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			Right? And then he
		
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17
			says where's my mouse? The kinds of sales
		
00:18:17 --> 00:18:19
			that emerge are thus 9 in number. So
		
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22
			permutation, you get 9 potential types of sales.
		
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			Delay from both sides is not permitted by
		
00:18:26 --> 00:18:27
			consensus or ijma'ah.
		
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			All Muslim scholars say that if you have
		
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31
			a delay from both sides in the transaction,
		
00:18:31 --> 00:18:33
			it's not gonna be permitted, whether it's in
		
00:18:33 --> 00:18:37
			corporeal property, actual objects, or whether it's in
		
00:18:37 --> 00:18:37
			liabilities
		
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40
			because it amounts to a prescribed
		
00:18:40 --> 00:18:43
			not prescribed. Does anyone know what prescribed means?
		
00:18:47 --> 00:18:48
			No.
		
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			Forbidden.
		
00:18:50 --> 00:18:51
			Right. So it's not allowed.
		
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54
			Different than prescribed. Opposite. Right? So something that
		
00:18:54 --> 00:18:55
			is forbidden,
		
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57
			exchange of a debt for a debt. So
		
00:18:57 --> 00:19:00
			in sharia, in Islamic law, you cannot exchange
		
00:19:00 --> 00:19:01
			a debt for a debt. So if you
		
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03
			have this type of delay, then it's gonna
		
00:19:03 --> 00:19:04
			be a problem. Then he says,
		
00:19:05 --> 00:19:07
			the names of these sales are derived from
		
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09
			the condition of the goods that are being
		
00:19:09 --> 00:19:10
			exchanged
		
00:19:10 --> 00:19:12
			and the form of the contract of sale
		
00:19:12 --> 00:19:12
			itself.
		
00:19:13 --> 00:19:15
			Thus, when 2 commodities are exchanged, 2 objects
		
00:19:15 --> 00:19:16
			are exchanged,
		
00:19:16 --> 00:19:18
			one may serve as a currency
		
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21
			and the other as a priced commodity. He
		
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23
			talks about the idea of a currency and
		
00:19:23 --> 00:19:24
			how you can use a currency to exchange
		
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26
			something for an actual commodity,
		
00:19:27 --> 00:19:29
			or both of them can be currencies. You're
		
00:19:29 --> 00:19:31
			exchanging dollars for dollars, or bitcoins for dollars,
		
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33
			or something like that. When And we'll talk
		
00:19:33 --> 00:19:35
			more about what a currency is. When a
		
00:19:35 --> 00:19:37
			currency is exchanged for a currency,
		
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40
			the sale is called sarf. When a currency
		
00:19:40 --> 00:19:42
			is exchanged for a price commodity, the transaction
		
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45
			is sale proper, meaning it's it's a it's
		
00:19:45 --> 00:19:46
			a sale, bare.
		
00:19:47 --> 00:19:49
			Similar is the sale of a price commodity
		
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51
			for another price commodity where you're bartering goods
		
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53
			with each other, upon conditions that will be
		
00:19:53 --> 00:19:54
			mentioned later,
		
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58
			when corporeal property is exchanged for a liability.
		
00:19:58 --> 00:20:00
			Right? When you put something there, and then
		
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02
			you're gonna be getting that thing later on.
		
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04
			So you give them something, but you're gonna
		
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06
			get the thing back later on, the sale
		
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08
			is called salam. Alright? We'll talk about that
		
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10
			a little bit later. If an option is
		
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12
			introduced in the sale, that's not important.
		
00:20:12 --> 00:20:13
			Next page.
		
00:20:14 --> 00:20:16
			Then he base This is the most important
		
00:20:16 --> 00:20:17
			part. So if you didn't get that, don't
		
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19
			worry about it. This is the really important
		
00:20:19 --> 00:20:20
			part. So he's
		
00:20:21 --> 00:20:21
			saying that
		
00:20:22 --> 00:20:23
			when the causes
		
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25
			due to which legal prescription,
		
00:20:25 --> 00:20:26
			if
		
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28
			not being allowed, has been laid down or
		
00:20:28 --> 00:20:29
			considered,
		
00:20:29 --> 00:20:32
			and these are the general causes of vitiation,
		
00:20:32 --> 00:20:34
			they are found to be 4. So there's
		
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36
			basically 4 things
		
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39
			that can cause something to be haram
		
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42
			in Islamic economics, pretty much. He's like summer
		
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44
			giving you the high level summary, and then
		
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46
			the rest of his book talks about that.
		
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49
			So he says, 1, the prohibition of the
		
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51
			commodity itself. So if the thing that you're
		
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53
			selling is haram, you're selling alcohol or something
		
00:20:53 --> 00:20:55
			like that, it's gonna be haram. Number 2,
		
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57
			if it has usury, if it has riba.
		
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59
			If it has riba or interest in it.
		
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01
			That's number 2. Number 3,
		
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03
			3rd is hazard or uncertainty.
		
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06
			There's a level of high level uncertainty or
		
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08
			hazard in there, it's gonna be forbidden in
		
00:21:08 --> 00:21:11
			Islam. And the 4th are stipulated conditions that
		
00:21:11 --> 00:21:14
			lead to 1 of the last 2 or
		
00:21:14 --> 00:21:15
			both simultaneously.
		
00:21:16 --> 00:21:17
			So anything that can lead to one of
		
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19
			those 2, or both of them, is also
		
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21
			gonna be considered to be,
		
00:21:22 --> 00:21:24
			you know, forbidden in Islam.
		
00:21:24 --> 00:21:25
			That's
		
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27
			basically among the most important things, and then
		
00:21:27 --> 00:21:29
			he talks a little bit about, you know,
		
00:21:29 --> 00:21:31
			rish and, you know, deceiving people and, you
		
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33
			know, lying and then causing injury.
		
00:21:34 --> 00:21:36
			This is important, actually, because we're gonna well,
		
00:21:36 --> 00:21:38
			actually, this is really important for bitcoin. So
		
00:21:38 --> 00:21:39
			let me read this sentence.
		
00:21:39 --> 00:21:41
			Among those in which the prescription,
		
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44
			the the the not being allowed, is linked
		
00:21:44 --> 00:21:46
			to an external factor
		
00:21:46 --> 00:21:47
			are misrepresentation.
		
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51
			Meaning you're you're stealing from people, you're money
		
00:21:51 --> 00:21:52
			laundering,
		
00:21:52 --> 00:21:54
			you're you're doing something along those lines, or
		
00:21:54 --> 00:21:55
			injury.
		
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59
			You're causing harm, whether it's individuals or you're
		
00:21:59 --> 00:22:01
			causing harm to society. Right? Or sale in
		
00:22:01 --> 00:22:03
			a period of time assigned to a more
		
00:22:03 --> 00:22:04
			important activity.
		
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06
			That's example of not being able to sell
		
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09
			during Jummah, and and sale prohibited in itself.
		
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11
			So what he's saying is that
		
00:22:12 --> 00:22:12
			intrinsically,
		
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16
			4 things can exist in in a Islamic
		
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18
			economic transaction which can cause it to be
		
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21
			prohibited. And then there's external factors like, you
		
00:22:21 --> 00:22:23
			know, you lied about something or this thing
		
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26
			caused harm. That's not specific to the transaction
		
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28
			or the object itself. It's something outside of
		
00:22:28 --> 00:22:29
			that.
		
00:22:29 --> 00:22:30
			All of these things
		
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33
			are gonna play a role when we look
		
00:22:33 --> 00:22:34
			at cryptocurrency,
		
00:22:35 --> 00:22:35
			the discussions
		
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39
			that Muslim scholars have about cryptocurrency.
		
00:22:39 --> 00:22:41
			So that's kind of what happens. So I'm
		
00:22:41 --> 00:22:42
			just explaining to you the process. So Muslim
		
00:22:42 --> 00:22:44
			scholars will go back, they'll look at books
		
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46
			like this, and they're not just gonna read
		
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48
			the introduction, by the way. This is like
		
00:22:48 --> 00:22:49
			the 2 page introduction. They're gonna go and
		
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51
			read through all the other principles in the
		
00:22:51 --> 00:22:53
			rest of the book and it's a nice
		
00:22:53 --> 00:22:55
			big fat book. Right? So
		
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58
			that's, that's kinda what's gonna happen. Okay?
		
00:22:58 --> 00:23:00
			The third the third principle
		
00:23:00 --> 00:23:02
			actually is is mentioned here, So
		
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05
			I mentioned there's three reasons. Right? Three principles.
		
00:23:05 --> 00:23:06
			The default is permissibility,
		
00:23:07 --> 00:23:09
			unless you can prove it's haram. In Islamic
		
00:23:09 --> 00:23:10
			economics,
		
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12
			it's gotta have either riba,
		
00:23:12 --> 00:23:13
			interest, or gharar,
		
00:23:13 --> 00:23:16
			you know, uncertainty, or one of these other
		
00:23:16 --> 00:23:17
			two things that he mentioned which are not
		
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19
			that relevant to us.
		
00:23:19 --> 00:23:19
			Or
		
00:23:20 --> 00:23:21
			number 3,
		
00:23:21 --> 00:23:23
			there's gotta be dharar.
		
00:23:24 --> 00:23:26
			There's gotta be some major harm that this
		
00:23:26 --> 00:23:29
			thing causes. So for example, you know, selling
		
00:23:30 --> 00:23:30
			weapons
		
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32
			in a war zone
		
00:23:33 --> 00:23:34
			to people who you know are gonna be
		
00:23:34 --> 00:23:37
			killing each other, and they're totally, you know,
		
00:23:37 --> 00:23:38
			not in control of themselves,
		
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41
			is is something which is gonna become forbidden.
		
00:23:41 --> 00:23:43
			Not because selling weapons
		
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45
			is forbidden in and of itself,
		
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48
			but due to some external factor
		
00:23:48 --> 00:23:50
			of what's gonna happen when you actually are
		
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52
			selling. Okay? So
		
00:23:53 --> 00:23:54
			now,
		
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56
			that gives us a little bit of the
		
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58
			principles that we need to know. Let's talk
		
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00
			about the history of currency and money. So
		
00:24:00 --> 00:24:02
			before we try to understand cryptocurrency,
		
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06
			right, the scholar has to ask, what exactly
		
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07
			is currency?
		
00:24:08 --> 00:24:10
			How does it function? What do we consider
		
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13
			to be a a legitimate currency, and how
		
00:24:13 --> 00:24:15
			does it come about and all of that?
		
00:24:15 --> 00:24:18
			So very brief history of how currency functions.
		
00:24:18 --> 00:24:18
			Okay?
		
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21
			So currency is basically, you know,
		
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25
			people needed goods and services, that's something natural,
		
00:24:26 --> 00:24:29
			and you want something that you can value,
		
00:24:29 --> 00:24:31
			so that you can trade that thing with
		
00:24:31 --> 00:24:34
			a wider array of actual goods. So looking
		
00:24:34 --> 00:24:35
			at history,
		
00:24:35 --> 00:24:36
			in the beginning,
		
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40
			commodity money was adopted a long time ago.
		
00:24:40 --> 00:24:41
			So in ancient Mesopotamia,
		
00:24:42 --> 00:24:44
			we're talking, you know, 1000 and 1000 of
		
00:24:44 --> 00:24:44
			years ago,
		
00:24:45 --> 00:24:47
			they came up with a measure of currency
		
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49
			called a shekel. And a shekel was
		
00:24:50 --> 00:24:52
			160 grains of barley,
		
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54
			and they had a measure of that, and
		
00:24:54 --> 00:24:56
			that became a currency which they used to
		
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58
			use to trade in order to get goods.
		
00:24:58 --> 00:25:00
			And of course that has an intrinsic value.
		
00:25:00 --> 00:25:03
			Right? Because if you can't trade it, and
		
00:25:03 --> 00:25:04
			and you you decide, you know what, I
		
00:25:04 --> 00:25:06
			have all this money with me, I have
		
00:25:06 --> 00:25:07
			this currency with me, what can I do
		
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09
			with it? You can just cook it and
		
00:25:09 --> 00:25:11
			eat it. Right? So it's it has an
		
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14
			intrinsic value for you because people would use
		
00:25:14 --> 00:25:16
			barley, and that's food, and it's it's edible.
		
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20
			In some other societies, they adopted different currencies.
		
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22
			Like for example, in the Americas and in
		
00:25:22 --> 00:25:25
			Africa, they adopted shells. There are certain type
		
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27
			of rare shells that they would find along,
		
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29
			you know, in the near the ocean and
		
00:25:29 --> 00:25:31
			the water and all of that, and they
		
00:25:31 --> 00:25:32
			would use those shells
		
00:25:32 --> 00:25:34
			as a currency to be able to trade
		
00:25:34 --> 00:25:36
			something. So if someone has,
		
00:25:37 --> 00:25:39
			I don't know, carpet or,
		
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41
			whatever, like, you know, some bowls or pots
		
00:25:41 --> 00:25:43
			or something like that, and you don't have
		
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45
			any other pots to trade or you don't
		
00:25:45 --> 00:25:47
			have any other physical thing to trade, you
		
00:25:47 --> 00:25:49
			wanna have some currency that actually
		
00:25:50 --> 00:25:51
			you give value
		
00:25:51 --> 00:25:53
			because of the rarity
		
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55
			of the availability
		
00:25:55 --> 00:25:56
			of that thing,
		
00:25:56 --> 00:25:59
			and that becomes a currency. So shells used
		
00:25:59 --> 00:26:00
			to be used in the past as well.
		
00:26:00 --> 00:26:02
			And then you have, you know, other things
		
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04
			which were used, other foods sometimes,
		
00:26:04 --> 00:26:06
			but then you have gold and silver.
		
00:26:06 --> 00:26:09
			Gold and silver became the primary currency throughout
		
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12
			much of the world. And the reason why,
		
00:26:12 --> 00:26:13
			it should be fairly obvious, is because one,
		
00:26:13 --> 00:26:14
			it has certain properties,
		
00:26:15 --> 00:26:17
			there is a limited amount of it. It's
		
00:26:17 --> 00:26:19
			this it's difficult to find, so this, you
		
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21
			know, limited amount, like I said, and then
		
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23
			it's obviously shiny and cool looking and all
		
00:26:23 --> 00:26:24
			of that stuff. Right? And it plays other
		
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26
			roles. So there's something rare about it, and
		
00:26:26 --> 00:26:28
			therefore it became a currency. So you can't
		
00:26:28 --> 00:26:30
			just have random people just coming up with
		
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32
			everything becomes a currency, then it has no
		
00:26:32 --> 00:26:33
			real value.
		
00:26:33 --> 00:26:37
			What happened after? This is called commodity money.
		
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39
			What happened afterwards
		
00:26:39 --> 00:26:42
			is this developed into representative
		
00:26:42 --> 00:26:43
			money
		
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46
			or promissory notes. So what ended up happening
		
00:26:46 --> 00:26:46
			was people
		
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49
			used to keep all their valuables, their gold,
		
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51
			or their val their stuff inside of a,
		
00:26:51 --> 00:26:53
			like, a vault. Like a a vault, a
		
00:26:53 --> 00:26:55
			bank vault or something like that. And when
		
00:26:55 --> 00:26:57
			they put their money inside that vault, they
		
00:26:57 --> 00:26:59
			were given a deposit slip. So when they
		
00:26:59 --> 00:27:01
			come back, they know that they're gonna be
		
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03
			able to get this much back. So they
		
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05
			get this slip. So what ended up happening
		
00:27:05 --> 00:27:06
			was, eventually,
		
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08
			they started taking this slip and say, okay,
		
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10
			well, instead of if I wanna go buy
		
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12
			something, instead of me going back to this
		
00:27:12 --> 00:27:14
			vault and pulling out all of the money,
		
00:27:14 --> 00:27:15
			and then going, you know, all of my
		
00:27:15 --> 00:27:18
			valuables, and then giving it to someone else
		
00:27:18 --> 00:27:19
			in order to get that thing from someone,
		
00:27:19 --> 00:27:21
			I can just give them this slip. The
		
00:27:21 --> 00:27:23
			slip transfers over to them, and they can
		
00:27:23 --> 00:27:25
			go to the vault now and get exactly
		
00:27:25 --> 00:27:26
			what was written on my slip.
		
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29
			And that's how you pretty much get,
		
00:27:30 --> 00:27:32
			you know, bills, like, that way, like we
		
00:27:32 --> 00:27:34
			use today. So then we have
		
00:27:35 --> 00:27:35
			currency
		
00:27:35 --> 00:27:36
			being a bill
		
00:27:37 --> 00:27:39
			that is backed by an asset, by an
		
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41
			actual, you know, physical thing which has value
		
00:27:41 --> 00:27:42
			in that society.
		
00:27:43 --> 00:27:45
			So what happened was this gold standard
		
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48
			was the gold standard where the bill was
		
00:27:48 --> 00:27:50
			backed by gold
		
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53
			became very prevalent throughout 17th to 19th centuries
		
00:27:53 --> 00:27:55
			in Europe, and then started spreading throughout the
		
00:27:55 --> 00:27:57
			world in different parts as well. So what
		
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00
			happened was, these paper notes, you can convert
		
00:28:00 --> 00:28:02
			them back into a fixed gold amount anytime
		
00:28:02 --> 00:28:03
			you wanted to, pretty much.
		
00:28:04 --> 00:28:06
			Now in the 20th century, almost all countries
		
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09
			adopted the gold standard. So almost everyone in
		
00:28:09 --> 00:28:11
			the entire world is on the gold standard.
		
00:28:11 --> 00:28:13
			They're using bills, the bill is backed by
		
00:28:13 --> 00:28:15
			gold. In 1971,
		
00:28:16 --> 00:28:18
			the United States ditches the gold standard and
		
00:28:18 --> 00:28:22
			says that from now on, our bills cannot
		
00:28:22 --> 00:28:23
			be converted back to gold.
		
00:28:24 --> 00:28:26
			What you they don't have they're not gonna
		
00:28:26 --> 00:28:27
			be commodity backed anymore.
		
00:28:27 --> 00:28:29
			So you say, well, what value do they
		
00:28:29 --> 00:28:31
			have? They used to have some value and
		
00:28:31 --> 00:28:33
			the value is given by commodity. They said,
		
00:28:33 --> 00:28:34
			no.
		
00:28:34 --> 00:28:37
			Our currency is not commodity currency anymore, it
		
00:28:37 --> 00:28:39
			is fiat currency.
		
00:28:39 --> 00:28:40
			Fiat
		
00:28:40 --> 00:28:42
			means is a word which means, let it
		
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44
			be done. Meaning like it's a it's a
		
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46
			it's a command.
		
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48
			What does that mean? It means by the
		
00:28:48 --> 00:28:49
			power of the government,
		
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52
			we're telling you that this paper that we're
		
00:28:52 --> 00:28:54
			printing has money, it has value.
		
00:28:55 --> 00:28:57
			And you're simply gonna believe us, you know.
		
00:28:57 --> 00:28:59
			And we'll we'll we'll make you believe us
		
00:28:59 --> 00:29:01
			if you don't believe us. And because of
		
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04
			our power, we're able to give this paper
		
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06
			a certain type of value.
		
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08
			So this is kind of what happened. Okay?
		
00:29:08 --> 00:29:08
			So now,
		
00:29:09 --> 00:29:10
			the the money that you have in your
		
00:29:10 --> 00:29:13
			pocket, the bills that you have, if especially
		
00:29:13 --> 00:29:14
			if you're in America or most of the
		
00:29:14 --> 00:29:16
			world as well, you're on fiat currency.
		
00:29:17 --> 00:29:19
			Right? So this actual paper,
		
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21
			the value that it has
		
00:29:22 --> 00:29:25
			is generated by the fact that the government
		
00:29:25 --> 00:29:26
			is telling you that it has a certain
		
00:29:26 --> 00:29:27
			type of value.
		
00:29:28 --> 00:29:29
			It doesn't have any commodity value. I mean,
		
00:29:29 --> 00:29:31
			you can you can blow your nose with
		
00:29:31 --> 00:29:33
			it, or you can make a paper airplane
		
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35
			with it, but that's not very good value.
		
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37
			K? So that's where we are right now
		
00:29:37 --> 00:29:38
			in terms of fiat currency.
		
00:29:38 --> 00:29:39
			Now what happened was,
		
00:29:40 --> 00:29:42
			somewhere along the lines,
		
00:29:42 --> 00:29:42
			banks
		
00:29:43 --> 00:29:46
			that were having money deposits into their vaults,
		
00:29:46 --> 00:29:48
			they realized that, you know what?
		
00:29:48 --> 00:29:50
			Most people who put their money inside the
		
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53
			vault with us, they don't really withdraw all
		
00:29:53 --> 00:29:55
			of their valuables. They just kind of leave
		
00:29:55 --> 00:29:56
			it in there with us.
		
00:29:56 --> 00:29:58
			So what we can do is, we can
		
00:29:58 --> 00:29:58
			make money
		
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01
			by loaning out the valuables that they leave
		
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03
			inside of our vault,
		
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05
			while they're gone because they're not likely to
		
00:30:05 --> 00:30:07
			come and get it. So we can loan
		
00:30:07 --> 00:30:09
			it out, and we can collect interest, which
		
00:30:09 --> 00:30:11
			is money on the valuables that we're giving
		
00:30:11 --> 00:30:12
			out, and we can
		
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15
			collect that interest and make a lot more
		
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17
			money than just paying like guarding fees for
		
00:30:17 --> 00:30:17
			our vault.
		
00:30:18 --> 00:30:19
			And what we'll do on top of that
		
00:30:19 --> 00:30:20
			is we'll go ahead and give a little
		
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22
			bit of the interest that we make to
		
00:30:22 --> 00:30:24
			the person who's depositing money, so they deposit
		
00:30:24 --> 00:30:26
			more money, and they're more likely to keep
		
00:30:26 --> 00:30:27
			it in there for a long period of
		
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29
			time. So they can make a lot more
		
00:30:29 --> 00:30:30
			money. So the first,
		
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33
			central bank that was doing something like this
		
00:30:33 --> 00:30:34
			started in 16/68.
		
00:30:35 --> 00:30:36
			That was the Swedish Riksbank.
		
00:30:37 --> 00:30:38
			And what they did was they set a
		
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41
			reserve requirement. In order to prevent a bank
		
00:30:41 --> 00:30:44
			run from happening, you have to have a
		
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46
			certain amount where you say, we have to
		
00:30:46 --> 00:30:49
			keep this much money inside our vault that
		
00:30:49 --> 00:30:51
			we don't loan out to other people. Because
		
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53
			if all these people come and say, I
		
00:30:53 --> 00:30:54
			want my money right now, and then you
		
00:30:54 --> 00:30:55
			don't have all of it because you loaned
		
00:30:55 --> 00:30:57
			it out, can have what's called a bank
		
00:30:57 --> 00:30:59
			run and now you're gonna have a problem.
		
00:30:59 --> 00:31:00
			You're gonna default.
		
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04
			So that's where that's kind of the next
		
00:31:04 --> 00:31:05
			development in banking.
		
00:31:05 --> 00:31:08
			The latest development, the development after that became
		
00:31:08 --> 00:31:10
			what's called fractional reserve banking.
		
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13
			This is extremely important to understand
		
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16
			in order to answer the question on cryptocurrency
		
00:31:16 --> 00:31:19
			and its value. So fractional reserve banking,
		
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21
			we have to understand the difference in currency
		
00:31:21 --> 00:31:22
			and money.
		
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24
			They're not the same thing. Maybe they were
		
00:31:24 --> 00:31:25
			the same thing in the past, but they're
		
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28
			not. So what happens is fractional reserve banking
		
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30
			basically works like this. I'm oversimplifying it, but
		
00:31:30 --> 00:31:32
			this is from books of economics.
		
00:31:32 --> 00:31:33
			You have $10,000.
		
00:31:34 --> 00:31:35
			You put $10,000
		
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38
			into the bank. Okay?
		
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40
			How much money do you own?
		
00:31:43 --> 00:31:45
			It's You still own. Technically, you own $10,000.
		
00:31:46 --> 00:31:49
			Right? So the bank, being a bank, will
		
00:31:49 --> 00:31:51
			take that money that they have in there,
		
00:31:51 --> 00:31:53
			and they will loan $9,000
		
00:31:54 --> 00:31:55
			of the money that you put in the
		
00:31:55 --> 00:31:57
			bank to someone else.
		
00:31:57 --> 00:31:58
			Okay?
		
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01
			You still have $10,000.
		
00:32:02 --> 00:32:04
			The company The the person that the bank
		
00:32:04 --> 00:32:07
			loaned the money to, they have how much
		
00:32:07 --> 00:32:08
			money now?
		
00:32:09 --> 00:32:09
			$9,000.
		
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13
			Right? So now the company, they will use
		
00:32:13 --> 00:32:13
			the $9,000
		
00:32:14 --> 00:32:17
			to pay 9 of its workers or something
		
00:32:17 --> 00:32:18
			like that. Each of them gets a $1,000.
		
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21
			All of them take $1,000
		
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23
			home with them. You still have
		
00:32:24 --> 00:32:24
			$10,000.
		
00:32:25 --> 00:32:27
			Each of the workers has
		
00:32:27 --> 00:32:28
			$1,000.
		
00:32:28 --> 00:32:30
			Each worker goes and puts the $1,000
		
00:32:31 --> 00:32:32
			back into a bank,
		
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34
			and then the loop starts over again.
		
00:32:35 --> 00:32:36
			So what's happening is,
		
00:32:37 --> 00:32:39
			more money is being created
		
00:32:39 --> 00:32:40
			than actually exists
		
00:32:41 --> 00:32:43
			in its current form, in the form of
		
00:32:43 --> 00:32:44
			currency.
		
00:32:44 --> 00:32:46
			That is a fractional reserve banking system, which
		
00:32:46 --> 00:32:49
			means basically that if you have a, whatever,
		
00:32:49 --> 00:32:52
			10% reserve limit or something, you put $10,000
		
00:32:52 --> 00:32:54
			in the bank, the bank can take
		
00:32:54 --> 00:32:56
			9,000 of your $10,000
		
00:32:56 --> 00:32:58
			and loan it out to someone else.
		
00:32:58 --> 00:33:00
			And that money become that that adds to
		
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02
			the money supply
		
00:33:02 --> 00:33:04
			of the actual country.
		
00:33:04 --> 00:33:06
			So this is the way money supply works.
		
00:33:06 --> 00:33:07
			Now, this is
		
00:33:07 --> 00:33:09
			Some of you are like, you know, what
		
00:33:09 --> 00:33:12
			is How does money just magically appear on
		
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14
			a number? Where does this money come from?
		
00:33:14 --> 00:33:16
			Well, it's something that's recorded on a register.
		
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19
			This is how money functions in our economy
		
00:33:20 --> 00:33:20
			today.
		
00:33:21 --> 00:33:23
			Okay? So the money supply
		
00:33:23 --> 00:33:26
			of any country, let's take United States, is
		
00:33:26 --> 00:33:28
			the amount of currency that exists
		
00:33:28 --> 00:33:29
			added to
		
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32
			bank money, which is what is bank money?
		
00:33:32 --> 00:33:35
			Bank money are just numbers in a ledger,
		
00:33:35 --> 00:33:36
			in a transaction record.
		
00:33:37 --> 00:33:38
			And you add those together and that becomes
		
00:33:38 --> 00:33:40
			the money supply of a country.
		
00:33:40 --> 00:33:42
			So let me give you an example
		
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44
			of what that looks like in America.
		
00:33:44 --> 00:33:46
			In December of 2010,
		
00:33:47 --> 00:33:48
			in the United States,
		
00:33:48 --> 00:33:49
			there was
		
00:33:49 --> 00:33:50
			$8,800,000,000,000
		
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54
			in the broad money supply, which is what's
		
00:33:54 --> 00:33:55
			called m 2.
		
00:33:57 --> 00:33:57
			915,000,000,000,
		
00:33:59 --> 00:34:01
			which is about 10% of that, consisted of
		
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04
			actual physical coins and paper money.
		
00:34:05 --> 00:34:06
			So the other 90%
		
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09
			is not in physical existence.
		
00:34:10 --> 00:34:12
			This is gonna be a very important point
		
00:34:12 --> 00:34:12
			because
		
00:34:13 --> 00:34:16
			one of the, you know, one of the,
		
00:34:17 --> 00:34:20
			arguments that people make against Bitcoin or against
		
00:34:20 --> 00:34:21
			cryptocurrency
		
00:34:21 --> 00:34:24
			is that it doesn't exist in reality. It
		
00:34:24 --> 00:34:26
			has no you can't feel it, you can't
		
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28
			touch it, it has no tangible reality. And
		
00:34:28 --> 00:34:30
			you can't take it out for, you know,
		
00:34:30 --> 00:34:31
			something physical.
		
00:34:32 --> 00:34:33
			So therefore, it has no existence.
		
00:34:33 --> 00:34:34
			If we understand
		
00:34:35 --> 00:34:37
			how fractional reserve banking works, we understand how
		
00:34:37 --> 00:34:40
			the money supply of a country actually works,
		
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42
			we see that we have to give an
		
00:34:42 --> 00:34:43
			answer in light of
		
00:34:44 --> 00:34:47
			the current economic system that we live in,
		
00:34:47 --> 00:34:49
			and we function with, and we deal with,
		
00:34:49 --> 00:34:50
			and we don't really
		
00:34:50 --> 00:34:52
			complain so much about it. K? So this
		
00:34:52 --> 00:34:54
			is something that I wanted to explain about
		
00:34:54 --> 00:34:56
			the history of currency and money. How many
		
00:34:56 --> 00:34:57
			of you knew all of that, by the
		
00:34:57 --> 00:34:57
			way?
		
00:34:58 --> 00:35:00
			Okay. So we have
		
00:35:00 --> 00:35:03
			about 10%, not even 5% people who knew
		
00:35:03 --> 00:35:04
			that. That's good. So this is important to
		
00:35:04 --> 00:35:06
			know. This is the way it functions. Okay?
		
00:35:06 --> 00:35:08
			So now, let's move on to the history
		
00:35:08 --> 00:35:09
			of cryptocurrency,
		
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12
			what it is and how it functions.
		
00:35:12 --> 00:35:13
			Okay. So,
		
00:35:17 --> 00:35:18
			there was,
		
00:35:19 --> 00:35:20
			so let me go back to a little
		
00:35:20 --> 00:35:22
			bit history. You know, the idea of digital
		
00:35:22 --> 00:35:25
			cash, or having it, the idea of having
		
00:35:25 --> 00:35:26
			a digital currency
		
00:35:27 --> 00:35:28
			is not new.
		
00:35:28 --> 00:35:30
			It's actually a very old concept. There was
		
00:35:30 --> 00:35:31
			a guy, you know, there was many many
		
00:35:31 --> 00:35:34
			people in, you know, different computer science departments.
		
00:35:34 --> 00:35:36
			One of them was in Berkeley, he wrote
		
00:35:36 --> 00:35:37
			a paper on it in 19 eighties.
		
00:35:38 --> 00:35:40
			This guy came, I'll just give you there's
		
00:35:40 --> 00:35:41
			a bunch of companies that were launched.
		
00:35:41 --> 00:35:44
			One example of one company of digital currency
		
00:35:44 --> 00:35:45
			was called DigiCash.
		
00:35:46 --> 00:35:48
			DigiCash was launched in 1989.
		
00:35:48 --> 00:35:50
			This is a long time ago. Right? This
		
00:35:50 --> 00:35:52
			is way before all of this. So what
		
00:35:52 --> 00:35:54
			he did was, he says, we're gonna use
		
00:35:54 --> 00:35:54
			cryptography
		
00:35:55 --> 00:35:56
			to prevent
		
00:35:56 --> 00:35:57
			either the bank
		
00:35:57 --> 00:35:58
			or the government
		
00:35:59 --> 00:36:02
			from tracing online payments. So internet was around,
		
00:36:02 --> 00:36:05
			people were using the internet in 1989, not
		
00:36:05 --> 00:36:07
			too many people, but people were using it.
		
00:36:07 --> 00:36:10
			And he says, but these transactions that we're
		
00:36:10 --> 00:36:11
			doing online, they're traceable.
		
00:36:12 --> 00:36:14
			So we want to use cryptography,
		
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16
			which is a way of, you know, mathematical
		
00:36:16 --> 00:36:19
			algorithms to kind of disguise things, so kind
		
00:36:19 --> 00:36:21
			of like a secret message you can say.
		
00:36:22 --> 00:36:23
			We wanna use that technology
		
00:36:24 --> 00:36:26
			to do what specifically? We don't want banks
		
00:36:26 --> 00:36:28
			and we don't want governments being able to
		
00:36:28 --> 00:36:31
			trace the online payments that we have. So
		
00:36:31 --> 00:36:32
			they invented a company, they launched a company
		
00:36:32 --> 00:36:34
			called DigiCash in 1989.
		
00:36:35 --> 00:36:37
			This became actually accepted.
		
00:36:38 --> 00:36:40
			It was accepted by Deutsche Bank in Germany
		
00:36:40 --> 00:36:43
			and another bank, which is a really big
		
00:36:43 --> 00:36:45
			thing. Right? Like a Deutsche Bank is a
		
00:36:45 --> 00:36:46
			really major bank,
		
00:36:46 --> 00:36:48
			in the world. So this was accepted,
		
00:36:49 --> 00:36:51
			it was acknowledged, it was approved,
		
00:36:52 --> 00:36:54
			but it shut down The company shut down
		
00:36:54 --> 00:36:55
			in 1998.
		
00:36:56 --> 00:36:57
			What was the main reason why it shut
		
00:36:57 --> 00:36:58
			down?
		
00:36:58 --> 00:37:01
			People were not ready for this technology. Like,
		
00:37:01 --> 00:37:02
			you know, people It took the internet a
		
00:37:02 --> 00:37:03
			long time for people to kind of, you
		
00:37:03 --> 00:37:05
			know, get used to it. People, you know,
		
00:37:05 --> 00:37:08
			they're not comfortable with it. I remember people
		
00:37:08 --> 00:37:10
			used to always say, I'll I'll never trust
		
00:37:10 --> 00:37:12
			online banking. And now everyone does online banking.
		
00:37:12 --> 00:37:14
			Right? They're like, I don't trust putting my
		
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16
			money in there. It just takes time for
		
00:37:16 --> 00:37:18
			things to develop. This was not the right
		
00:37:18 --> 00:37:18
			time.
		
00:37:19 --> 00:37:20
			The eighties
		
00:37:20 --> 00:37:22
			and the nineties were not that time.
		
00:37:22 --> 00:37:24
			So what happened was,
		
00:37:24 --> 00:37:27
			is that this was not a major issue
		
00:37:27 --> 00:37:30
			because it was not a decentralized currency.
		
00:37:30 --> 00:37:32
			It was a digital currency,
		
00:37:32 --> 00:37:33
			in a way,
		
00:37:34 --> 00:37:36
			but people just weren't ready for it, but
		
00:37:36 --> 00:37:37
			it didn't become a big issue. Now what
		
00:37:37 --> 00:37:39
			we have is, the idea of having a
		
00:37:39 --> 00:37:40
			digital currency
		
00:37:42 --> 00:37:44
			is there in existence. You know, PayPal has
		
00:37:44 --> 00:37:45
			been there for a long time.
		
00:37:46 --> 00:37:48
			Venmo, those of you who use Venmo to
		
00:37:48 --> 00:37:50
			send money to people, things like that. There's
		
00:37:50 --> 00:37:51
			a lot of different, you know, you can
		
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53
			call you can say kind of digital currencies
		
00:37:53 --> 00:37:55
			or digital cash or something like that.
		
00:37:56 --> 00:37:58
			So when it comes to this cryptocurrency and
		
00:37:58 --> 00:37:58
			bitcoin,
		
00:37:59 --> 00:38:01
			there's nothing new about digital currency.
		
00:38:02 --> 00:38:04
			The only thing that's new
		
00:38:04 --> 00:38:06
			and innovative, and something that no one has
		
00:38:06 --> 00:38:07
			ever really seen,
		
00:38:08 --> 00:38:10
			is the idea that is decentralized.
		
00:38:11 --> 00:38:13
			Right? And I'm gonna explain to you what
		
00:38:13 --> 00:38:16
			that means. Right? What decentralized means is that
		
00:38:16 --> 00:38:17
			in the past,
		
00:38:17 --> 00:38:18
			before,
		
00:38:18 --> 00:38:21
			anytime you wanna send money to someone else,
		
00:38:21 --> 00:38:24
			right, how does that money transfer over?
		
00:38:24 --> 00:38:25
			You have to have a third party.
		
00:38:26 --> 00:38:28
			So if I wanna send money to Ali,
		
00:38:28 --> 00:38:29
			right,
		
00:38:30 --> 00:38:30
			digitally,
		
00:38:31 --> 00:38:33
			what's gonna happen is that
		
00:38:33 --> 00:38:35
			I will, you know, do some kind of
		
00:38:35 --> 00:38:37
			transfer from an app or something like that,
		
00:38:37 --> 00:38:39
			which money had for me, and I transfer
		
00:38:39 --> 00:38:41
			it over to Ali,
		
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43
			and I have to have a third party
		
00:38:43 --> 00:38:44
			to verify
		
00:38:44 --> 00:38:47
			that my money has transferred over again to
		
00:38:47 --> 00:38:47
			the other person.
		
00:38:48 --> 00:38:51
			Now, the issue is this. Right? We have
		
00:38:51 --> 00:38:52
			to have someone in the middle
		
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55
			because if you look at digital files,
		
00:38:56 --> 00:38:59
			files don't transfer per se, they copy.
		
00:39:00 --> 00:39:01
			Like, if you have you're working on a
		
00:39:01 --> 00:39:01
			document,
		
00:39:02 --> 00:39:03
			and your friend says, hey, send me that
		
00:39:03 --> 00:39:05
			document. You email them the doc I'm trying
		
00:39:05 --> 00:39:06
			to make it easy for you. Right? You
		
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08
			email them the document over.
		
00:39:09 --> 00:39:11
			You can keep a copy of that document.
		
00:39:12 --> 00:39:14
			Right? So it doesn't just transfer over to
		
00:39:14 --> 00:39:15
			the person, and now you don't have it
		
00:39:15 --> 00:39:16
			anymore.
		
00:39:16 --> 00:39:18
			Now, what's gonna happen is, if you have
		
00:39:18 --> 00:39:19
			a digital currency,
		
00:39:20 --> 00:39:22
			how do you ensure that when you send
		
00:39:22 --> 00:39:24
			it over to someone else,
		
00:39:24 --> 00:39:26
			it's not in your possession anymore, and you
		
00:39:26 --> 00:39:27
			didn't keep a copy.
		
00:39:28 --> 00:39:30
			And what's gonna happen is, this is called
		
00:39:30 --> 00:39:31
			the double spending problem,
		
00:39:31 --> 00:39:33
			that I can go and after I send
		
00:39:33 --> 00:39:35
			it to you, I still have my copy,
		
00:39:35 --> 00:39:37
			I can go and spend it with someone
		
00:39:37 --> 00:39:38
			else.
		
00:39:38 --> 00:39:39
			So,
		
00:39:40 --> 00:39:41
			until 2,008,
		
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43
			as far as I know, no one was
		
00:39:43 --> 00:39:46
			really able to figure out or solve what's
		
00:39:46 --> 00:39:48
			called the double spending problem.
		
00:39:48 --> 00:39:50
			How do you resolve this issue
		
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52
			without having a third party? What does a
		
00:39:52 --> 00:39:54
			third party do? You know, you take Mastercard,
		
00:39:54 --> 00:39:56
			or you take the government, or a bank,
		
00:39:56 --> 00:39:58
			or whatever it is. They're gonna verify. I
		
00:39:58 --> 00:40:00
			sent you the the file, like PayPal, for
		
00:40:00 --> 00:40:00
			example.
		
00:40:01 --> 00:40:04
			I send Ali a certain amount of money.
		
00:40:04 --> 00:40:06
			PayPal is the 3rd party who's watching and
		
00:40:06 --> 00:40:09
			saying, hey, you transferred this money over there.
		
00:40:09 --> 00:40:11
			What we're gonna do is you have a
		
00:40:11 --> 00:40:11
			ledger,
		
00:40:12 --> 00:40:13
			a record. Right?
		
00:40:13 --> 00:40:16
			We're gonna subtract this number from your record,
		
00:40:17 --> 00:40:18
			and we're gonna add this number to the
		
00:40:18 --> 00:40:19
			other person's record
		
00:40:20 --> 00:40:21
			to ensure that you don't keep a copy
		
00:40:21 --> 00:40:23
			and you're not gonna try and double spend
		
00:40:23 --> 00:40:25
			that. So you have to have this third
		
00:40:25 --> 00:40:25
			party,
		
00:40:26 --> 00:40:28
			you know, mediating between you. So that was
		
00:40:28 --> 00:40:29
			kind of the issue.
		
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32
			Alright? Now what happened was,
		
00:40:32 --> 00:40:35
			something really big happened
		
00:40:35 --> 00:40:36
			in 2,008,
		
00:40:37 --> 00:40:39
			in the world. It was a major world
		
00:40:39 --> 00:40:40
			event.
		
00:40:40 --> 00:40:41
			Right?
		
00:40:41 --> 00:40:42
			Outside of
		
00:40:43 --> 00:40:45
			me graduating from Islamic school and coming back
		
00:40:45 --> 00:40:47
			and becoming an imam, there was another major
		
00:40:47 --> 00:40:49
			world event. I'm just kidding. There's another major
		
00:40:49 --> 00:40:52
			world event that happened. Does anyone know what
		
00:40:52 --> 00:40:53
			that event was?
		
00:40:54 --> 00:40:56
			Financial meltdown. Financial crisis.
		
00:40:56 --> 00:40:59
			Right? And why the financial crisis happened? I
		
00:40:59 --> 00:41:01
			mean, that's gonna be a whole another, you
		
00:41:01 --> 00:41:02
			know, another hour lecture.
		
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05
			Why the financial crisis happened? A lot of
		
00:41:05 --> 00:41:06
			it had to do with deregulation
		
00:41:06 --> 00:41:08
			from the government, and it led to,
		
00:41:09 --> 00:41:11
			and and banks' misuse and all of that.
		
00:41:11 --> 00:41:12
			It led to distrust
		
00:41:13 --> 00:41:15
			around the world, even in America,
		
00:41:16 --> 00:41:19
			about the role of the government in banking
		
00:41:19 --> 00:41:19
			and economics,
		
00:41:20 --> 00:41:21
			and the role of banks specifically.
		
00:41:22 --> 00:41:24
			And this is like the biggest, you know,
		
00:41:24 --> 00:41:25
			one of the biggest, you know,
		
00:41:26 --> 00:41:26
			crimes,
		
00:41:27 --> 00:41:28
			probably the history of the world, in terms
		
00:41:28 --> 00:41:30
			of how much money, you know, was lost
		
00:41:30 --> 00:41:32
			and everything. And how many people went to
		
00:41:32 --> 00:41:33
			jail for it?
		
00:41:34 --> 00:41:36
			None. Almost none. Like one little small guy.
		
00:41:36 --> 00:41:38
			That's it. Everyone else, they all just got
		
00:41:38 --> 00:41:40
			bonuses and raises, and they got bailed out
		
00:41:40 --> 00:41:41
			in the bailout plan and all of that
		
00:41:41 --> 00:41:43
			stuff happened. You you this is, you know,
		
00:41:43 --> 00:41:44
			you should you should look into that. This
		
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46
			is a very important world event.
		
00:41:47 --> 00:41:48
			So
		
00:41:48 --> 00:41:51
			what happened in 2,008, what was leading up
		
00:41:51 --> 00:41:53
			to that, people were really upset.
		
00:41:53 --> 00:41:56
			And now, you have a group of online
		
00:41:56 --> 00:41:57
			hackers,
		
00:41:57 --> 00:41:59
			right, who are really good with computers.
		
00:42:00 --> 00:42:02
			They start looking back into this idea, which
		
00:42:02 --> 00:42:05
			was popular since the nineties and the eighties,
		
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07
			of digital cash and digital currency and all
		
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10
			that. And they say, we need to figure
		
00:42:10 --> 00:42:13
			out a way to cut out the government
		
00:42:13 --> 00:42:15
			and cut out the banks
		
00:42:15 --> 00:42:17
			from being that third party,
		
00:42:18 --> 00:42:18
			because we,
		
00:42:19 --> 00:42:21
			1, we cannot necessarily trust them.
		
00:42:23 --> 00:42:23
			So it started the idea started gaining momentum
		
00:42:23 --> 00:42:26
			because look how they manipulated things, and it
		
00:42:26 --> 00:42:28
			led to a financial meltdown, and people were
		
00:42:28 --> 00:42:29
			losing their houses and their jobs and almost
		
00:42:29 --> 00:42:31
			everything. So they're saying,
		
00:42:31 --> 00:42:34
			there was a loss of trust that happened.
		
00:42:34 --> 00:42:35
			That was 1.
		
00:42:36 --> 00:42:38
			And then 2, you know, there's just obviously
		
00:42:38 --> 00:42:40
			all these trans having a third party causes
		
00:42:40 --> 00:42:41
			transaction fees.
		
00:42:42 --> 00:42:45
			So what happened was, there's a guy by
		
00:42:45 --> 00:42:45
			the name of
		
00:42:46 --> 00:42:47
			Satoshi Nakamoto.
		
00:42:47 --> 00:42:49
			He's not a real person. This is his
		
00:42:49 --> 00:42:51
			fake name. He may be a group of
		
00:42:51 --> 00:42:53
			people. Right? Nobody knows, really.
		
00:42:54 --> 00:42:57
			He kinda disappeared when someone or his partner
		
00:42:57 --> 00:42:59
			said, I wanna go and present this idea
		
00:42:59 --> 00:43:00
			to the CIA. He just disappeared.
		
00:43:00 --> 00:43:02
			No one ever heard of him again. He's
		
00:43:02 --> 00:43:03
			very paranoid, obviously.
		
00:43:04 --> 00:43:07
			So he publishes a paper in 2008.
		
00:43:08 --> 00:43:10
			And this is a very important paper. Now
		
00:43:10 --> 00:43:11
			a lot of people are investing in bitcoin
		
00:43:11 --> 00:43:13
			and all that, they don't understand
		
00:43:13 --> 00:43:15
			how it really functions, they don't understand what
		
00:43:15 --> 00:43:18
			the philosophy behind it was, the motive behind
		
00:43:18 --> 00:43:20
			it. It's important for a scholar, a Muslim
		
00:43:20 --> 00:43:23
			scholar, to understand the motive behind things because
		
00:43:23 --> 00:43:26
			then they can understand the philosophy behind it,
		
00:43:26 --> 00:43:28
			and then they can see how that philosophy
		
00:43:28 --> 00:43:31
			lines up with the philosophy of Islamic law.
		
00:43:31 --> 00:43:32
			So this is all very, very important for
		
00:43:32 --> 00:43:34
			a scholar. I'm not just doing this because
		
00:43:34 --> 00:43:35
			I'm, you know, interested in a history lesson
		
00:43:35 --> 00:43:38
			or something. So Satoshi Nakamoto published this small
		
00:43:38 --> 00:43:39
			paper, it's like 10 pages.
		
00:43:40 --> 00:43:41
			It's not a, you know,
		
00:43:42 --> 00:43:43
			I would it's not difficult to read if
		
00:43:43 --> 00:43:45
			you have a little knowledge of
		
00:43:45 --> 00:43:46
			computers
		
00:43:47 --> 00:43:50
			or a good knowledge of computers. Little It's
		
00:43:50 --> 00:43:52
			it's not that difficult to understand. But it's
		
00:43:52 --> 00:43:54
			absolute ingenious paper. So I'm gonna go over
		
00:43:54 --> 00:43:56
			the introduction with you, so you have a
		
00:43:56 --> 00:43:58
			good understanding. You understand where this is coming
		
00:43:58 --> 00:44:00
			from. This is his abstract. This is his
		
00:44:00 --> 00:44:01
			overview of the idea.
		
00:44:01 --> 00:44:03
			I'm gonna give you tafsir of this too.
		
00:44:03 --> 00:44:05
			Don't worry. Okay? I'll give you the explanation.
		
00:44:05 --> 00:44:08
			So he's saying, a purely peer to peer
		
00:44:08 --> 00:44:09
			version of electronic cash
		
00:44:10 --> 00:44:12
			would allow online payments to be sent directly
		
00:44:13 --> 00:44:14
			from one party to another
		
00:44:14 --> 00:44:17
			without going through a financial institution. So you're
		
00:44:17 --> 00:44:18
			saying, if we can figure out a system
		
00:44:19 --> 00:44:21
			where I can send you money directly without
		
00:44:21 --> 00:44:23
			having to go through the 3rd party financial
		
00:44:23 --> 00:44:26
			system, whether it's PayPal or Visa or Mastercard
		
00:44:26 --> 00:44:27
			or a bank, if we can if I
		
00:44:27 --> 00:44:29
			can figure out how to do that, this
		
00:44:29 --> 00:44:30
			is what we're gonna do in this paper.
		
00:44:30 --> 00:44:33
			We're gonna outline a model for that. So
		
00:44:33 --> 00:44:35
			he's saying digital signatures provide part of the
		
00:44:35 --> 00:44:35
			solution,
		
00:44:36 --> 00:44:38
			but the main benefits are lost if a
		
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41
			trusted third party is still required to prevent
		
00:44:41 --> 00:44:43
			double spending. So I told you about the
		
00:44:43 --> 00:44:45
			double spending problem. So he's saying, you can
		
00:44:45 --> 00:44:47
			have all these digital signatures and everything, but
		
00:44:47 --> 00:44:49
			you have to have this third party. How
		
00:44:49 --> 00:44:51
			do you cut out the 3rd party and
		
00:44:51 --> 00:44:53
			how do you solve the double spending problem?
		
00:44:53 --> 00:44:55
			So he says, we propose
		
00:44:56 --> 00:44:58
			a solution to the double spending problem using
		
00:44:58 --> 00:45:00
			a peer to peer network. Right? So basically
		
00:45:00 --> 00:45:02
			what's gonna happen, this is gonna be a
		
00:45:02 --> 00:45:03
			distributed system of computers
		
00:45:04 --> 00:45:04
			all around,
		
00:45:05 --> 00:45:07
			and different people are gonna be running this
		
00:45:07 --> 00:45:10
			software. I'm trying to simplify simplify it for
		
00:45:10 --> 00:45:12
			you. The network time stamps, transactions,
		
00:45:13 --> 00:45:16
			by hashing them into an ongoing chain of
		
00:45:16 --> 00:45:18
			hash based proof of work, forming a record
		
00:45:18 --> 00:45:21
			that cannot be changed without redoing the proof
		
00:45:21 --> 00:45:24
			of work. So basically, he's talking about what
		
00:45:24 --> 00:45:25
			some of you have heard. Who has heard
		
00:45:25 --> 00:45:26
			of the word blockchain technology?
		
00:45:27 --> 00:45:28
			Alright. So quite a few have heard of
		
00:45:28 --> 00:45:30
			it. He's basically coming up with the idea
		
00:45:30 --> 00:45:32
			of the blockchain here, in 2008.
		
00:45:33 --> 00:45:35
			So he's saying, look, we're gonna figure out
		
00:45:35 --> 00:45:35
			a way
		
00:45:36 --> 00:45:37
			to put
		
00:45:39 --> 00:45:42
			put all these transactions together in a long
		
00:45:42 --> 00:45:42
			chain,
		
00:45:42 --> 00:45:45
			and there's no way you can somehow mess
		
00:45:45 --> 00:45:48
			this chain up. That's basically what he's saying.
		
00:45:48 --> 00:45:50
			He's saying the longest chain not only serves
		
00:45:50 --> 00:45:52
			as proof of sequence of events witnessed,
		
00:45:52 --> 00:45:54
			but proof that it came from the largest
		
00:45:54 --> 00:45:56
			pool of CPU power. So what he's saying
		
00:45:56 --> 00:45:58
			is that, you know what? Look, people are
		
00:45:58 --> 00:46:00
			gonna try and hack this. Right? They're gonna
		
00:46:00 --> 00:46:01
			try and break in and mess up the
		
00:46:01 --> 00:46:03
			whole computer system and everything. See, I'm gonna
		
00:46:03 --> 00:46:06
			give you all these safeguards to protect it
		
00:46:06 --> 00:46:08
			and prevent it from being hacked. So this
		
00:46:08 --> 00:46:11
			is his idea. So his idea is, as
		
00:46:11 --> 00:46:13
			long as the majority of CPU power is
		
00:46:13 --> 00:46:14
			controlled by nodes
		
00:46:15 --> 00:46:17
			that are not cooperating to attack the network,
		
00:46:17 --> 00:46:20
			they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers.
		
00:46:21 --> 00:46:23
			Right? Now, this is very this is a
		
00:46:23 --> 00:46:24
			very important statement here.
		
00:46:24 --> 00:46:25
			This is philosophically,
		
00:46:26 --> 00:46:27
			it's very important.
		
00:46:27 --> 00:46:28
			What he's saying is
		
00:46:29 --> 00:46:31
			that we're gonna develop a system
		
00:46:31 --> 00:46:34
			that as long as the majority of CPU
		
00:46:34 --> 00:46:36
			power of all these different computers
		
00:46:36 --> 00:46:39
			that different users are using this software on
		
00:46:39 --> 00:46:42
			throughout the entire world, as long as they
		
00:46:42 --> 00:46:43
			all are not cooperating
		
00:46:44 --> 00:46:46
			to try to hack the entire system together,
		
00:46:47 --> 00:46:49
			it will not be it cannot be hacked.
		
00:46:50 --> 00:46:51
			Why is this so important?
		
00:46:52 --> 00:46:53
			It's important because
		
00:46:54 --> 00:46:57
			the idea of having decentralized currency means that
		
00:46:57 --> 00:47:00
			you're not trusting the government, and you're not
		
00:47:00 --> 00:47:02
			trusting the banks. If you're not trusting the
		
00:47:02 --> 00:47:04
			government, you're not trusting the banks,
		
00:47:04 --> 00:47:06
			they are kind of like the elite people.
		
00:47:06 --> 00:47:08
			They're a small group of people. So what
		
00:47:08 --> 00:47:10
			are you doing? You have to trust somebody.
		
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13
			Someone, somewhere along the line has to be
		
00:47:13 --> 00:47:15
			trusted, otherwise, you cannot have currency.
		
00:47:15 --> 00:47:16
			So he's redistributing
		
00:47:17 --> 00:47:20
			the trust that's required for any currency,
		
00:47:20 --> 00:47:22
			especially a fiat type of currency,
		
00:47:22 --> 00:47:25
			for it to actually have some value. So
		
00:47:25 --> 00:47:27
			the trust is redistributed from
		
00:47:27 --> 00:47:29
			the elite government slash banks,
		
00:47:30 --> 00:47:32
			distributed across
		
00:47:33 --> 00:47:35
			anyone who wants to participate in the system.
		
00:47:35 --> 00:47:38
			And the assumption is kind of democratic. Right?
		
00:47:38 --> 00:47:40
			The assumption is, as long as you have
		
00:47:40 --> 00:47:42
			all of these distributed computer computers
		
00:47:43 --> 00:47:44
			working at the same time, as long as
		
00:47:44 --> 00:47:46
			they all don't team up together, or the
		
00:47:46 --> 00:47:48
			majority of them don't team up together to
		
00:47:48 --> 00:47:50
			try to overthrow this chain,
		
00:47:50 --> 00:47:52
			then it's you cannot hack the system.
		
00:47:53 --> 00:47:54
			You have trust
		
00:47:54 --> 00:47:55
			in the people
		
00:47:56 --> 00:47:58
			who are just running this, that they're not
		
00:47:58 --> 00:48:01
			gonna all collaborate together. And basically, this is
		
00:48:01 --> 00:48:01
			a revolutionary
		
00:48:02 --> 00:48:02
			idea,
		
00:48:02 --> 00:48:05
			saying that we have more trust
		
00:48:05 --> 00:48:09
			in a distributed network of of people
		
00:48:09 --> 00:48:11
			who are interested in this idea,
		
00:48:12 --> 00:48:13
			then we we have more trust in that,
		
00:48:14 --> 00:48:15
			then we do in specific people who may
		
00:48:15 --> 00:48:17
			be elected to government or may be in
		
00:48:17 --> 00:48:18
			charge of banks.
		
00:48:18 --> 00:48:20
			And that's where this idea becomes very revolutionary.
		
00:48:21 --> 00:48:22
			And then he says messages are broadcast on
		
00:48:22 --> 00:48:24
			our best effort, nodes can leave and join
		
00:48:24 --> 00:48:26
			rejoin the network at will. Anyone can join,
		
00:48:26 --> 00:48:29
			basically. Anyone can become part of this, and,
		
00:48:29 --> 00:48:31
			you accept the longest proof of chain as
		
00:48:31 --> 00:48:33
			work of what happened. So that's that's the
		
00:48:33 --> 00:48:36
			basically the philosophy of what Satoshi is coming
		
00:48:36 --> 00:48:38
			up with. Okay? So
		
00:48:39 --> 00:48:41
			that's the idea that he came up with.
		
00:48:41 --> 00:48:43
			K? So a few things to note here.
		
00:48:44 --> 00:48:47
			There is no Bitcoin company. I hear this
		
00:48:47 --> 00:48:49
			from I'm trying to dispel some myths here.
		
00:48:49 --> 00:48:51
			There's no bitcoin company, doesn't exist. It's a
		
00:48:51 --> 00:48:52
			technology.
		
00:48:52 --> 00:48:53
			There is no building.
		
00:48:54 --> 00:48:56
			Right? There's no bitcoin building where if you
		
00:48:56 --> 00:48:58
			have bitcoin or cryptocurrency,
		
00:48:59 --> 00:49:00
			what if that building gets bombed? You lose
		
00:49:00 --> 00:49:03
			all your money. There's no building, specifically. It's
		
00:49:03 --> 00:49:05
			distributed across the world, and people can be
		
00:49:05 --> 00:49:08
			added to it. There is no server. There's
		
00:49:08 --> 00:49:09
			no computer system that you can like shut
		
00:49:09 --> 00:49:12
			down, because it's a distributed network across the
		
00:49:12 --> 00:49:13
			world.
		
00:49:13 --> 00:49:14
			So
		
00:49:15 --> 00:49:17
			that's a few aspects of,
		
00:49:17 --> 00:49:18
			Bitcoin.
		
00:49:18 --> 00:49:21
			He made this blockchain ledger. It's a distributed
		
00:49:21 --> 00:49:23
			ledger that goes across. A ledger is something
		
00:49:23 --> 00:49:26
			which you record transactions in. So normally, the
		
00:49:26 --> 00:49:26
			ledger
		
00:49:27 --> 00:49:29
			of any other normal currency
		
00:49:29 --> 00:49:32
			that's, you know, centralized currency, is run by
		
00:49:32 --> 00:49:33
			government,
		
00:49:33 --> 00:49:35
			is gonna be controlled either by the, you
		
00:49:35 --> 00:49:37
			know, Federal Reserve Bank or the Central Bank
		
00:49:37 --> 00:49:38
			or something like that. They have all these
		
00:49:38 --> 00:49:40
			records and obviously they have backup copies and
		
00:49:40 --> 00:49:42
			everything. They keep track of this. This is
		
00:49:42 --> 00:49:43
			an automated system
		
00:49:44 --> 00:49:46
			that is automatically gonna be keeping track of
		
00:49:46 --> 00:49:47
			this, and he figured out a way to
		
00:49:47 --> 00:49:49
			do this, and it's a little bit complicated
		
00:49:49 --> 00:49:49
			to explain.
		
00:49:50 --> 00:49:53
			Encryption technology is gonna be used to regulate
		
00:49:53 --> 00:49:55
			the currency. So 2 things are gonna happen
		
00:49:55 --> 00:49:58
			with encryption. Crypto is coming from encryption.
		
00:49:58 --> 00:50:00
			What is encryption gonna do? What is technology
		
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03
			gonna help here? Number 1, it's gonna regulate
		
00:50:03 --> 00:50:05
			the generation of currency.
		
00:50:06 --> 00:50:06
			So normally,
		
00:50:07 --> 00:50:08
			the generation of currency
		
00:50:09 --> 00:50:11
			or the generation of money is regulated by
		
00:50:11 --> 00:50:12
			the government.
		
00:50:12 --> 00:50:14
			And like we said, you know, the the
		
00:50:14 --> 00:50:16
			government generally has no limits on how much
		
00:50:16 --> 00:50:17
			money
		
00:50:17 --> 00:50:19
			they can create. We talked about creating money
		
00:50:19 --> 00:50:22
			in fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. The
		
00:50:22 --> 00:50:24
			more currency that's created, the more money that's
		
00:50:24 --> 00:50:25
			created,
		
00:50:25 --> 00:50:27
			what happens to the value of your money?
		
00:50:29 --> 00:50:30
			It devalues. Right? It's inflation.
		
00:50:31 --> 00:50:33
			So so he's saying, we're gonna use an
		
00:50:33 --> 00:50:34
			encryption encryption,
		
00:50:35 --> 00:50:37
			let me explain how what is encryption. We're
		
00:50:37 --> 00:50:38
			gonna use computer technology
		
00:50:39 --> 00:50:42
			to figure out, we're gonna regulate and have
		
00:50:42 --> 00:50:44
			a very clear way to generate currency,
		
00:50:45 --> 00:50:47
			and also we're gonna use encryption to verify
		
00:50:48 --> 00:50:49
			the transfer of funds,
		
00:50:49 --> 00:50:50
			to make sure that
		
00:50:51 --> 00:50:53
			the this person cannot double spend when you
		
00:50:53 --> 00:50:56
			transfer money, but there's no central there's no
		
00:50:56 --> 00:50:58
			third party that's needed in this entire process.
		
00:50:59 --> 00:51:01
			So that's kind of an overview of kind
		
00:51:01 --> 00:51:02
			of how it works.
		
00:51:02 --> 00:51:03
			To give you a little bit summary,
		
00:51:04 --> 00:51:06
			there's 3 ways to attain cryptocurrency.
		
00:51:07 --> 00:51:09
			Number 1, you either take
		
00:51:10 --> 00:51:12
			fiat currency that you have, you take dollars
		
00:51:12 --> 00:51:14
			for example, you go to a bitcoin exchange
		
00:51:14 --> 00:51:17
			and you buy bitcoin, and they take your
		
00:51:17 --> 00:51:18
			money, and then you get it in your
		
00:51:18 --> 00:51:21
			bitcoin wallet. Number 2, you can transfer from
		
00:51:21 --> 00:51:23
			another user who has bitcoin. You can give
		
00:51:23 --> 00:51:24
			them cash or whatever it is,
		
00:51:25 --> 00:51:27
			or or you can transfer Bitcoin to Bitcoin.
		
00:51:27 --> 00:51:29
			And then number 3 is mining.
		
00:51:29 --> 00:51:29
			Okay.
		
00:51:31 --> 00:51:33
			I'm thinking whether I should explain mining, because
		
00:51:33 --> 00:51:34
			this is getting long.
		
00:51:37 --> 00:51:39
			I'm not gonna go into details about how
		
00:51:39 --> 00:51:42
			mining works, but basically, there's a maximum number
		
00:51:42 --> 00:51:43
			of bitcoins and that's 21,000,000.
		
00:51:44 --> 00:51:45
			Once it reaches that number, there cannot be
		
00:51:45 --> 00:51:47
			more. So what ends up happening is you
		
00:51:47 --> 00:51:49
			cannot keep on creating more and more of
		
00:51:49 --> 00:51:50
			these things.
		
00:51:50 --> 00:51:52
			Therefore, there's been arguments
		
00:51:52 --> 00:51:54
			that and there's a 2040, you know, 2,000
		
00:51:55 --> 00:51:56
			year 2040 limit.
		
00:51:56 --> 00:52:00
			There's an argument that this could potentially be
		
00:52:00 --> 00:52:01
			a much more stable currency
		
00:52:02 --> 00:52:04
			than a fiat currency because you cannot just
		
00:52:04 --> 00:52:06
			keep on, you know, adding more and more
		
00:52:06 --> 00:52:07
			to it whenever you want to.
		
00:52:07 --> 00:52:09
			Alright. So without going into more details,
		
00:52:10 --> 00:52:11
			what happened
		
00:52:11 --> 00:52:12
			historically?
		
00:52:12 --> 00:52:13
			Okay. Historically,
		
00:52:16 --> 00:52:19
			bitcoin comes out as the first cryptocurrency. So
		
00:52:19 --> 00:52:20
			it's the first one that's established.
		
00:52:21 --> 00:52:21
			Satoshi,
		
00:52:22 --> 00:52:24
			right after the few weeks after the fall
		
00:52:24 --> 00:52:27
			of Lehman Brothers, major bank, investment bank,
		
00:52:28 --> 00:52:29
			he says we need to program this thing
		
00:52:29 --> 00:52:31
			quickly. He comes up with the idea, he
		
00:52:31 --> 00:52:34
			makes it functional, and he he launches bitcoin.
		
00:52:34 --> 00:52:36
			So what happens is in the beginning there
		
00:52:36 --> 00:52:37
			were 2 types of people who cared about
		
00:52:37 --> 00:52:40
			bitcoin. They were either computer enthusiasts, they just
		
00:52:40 --> 00:52:42
			liked the idea of, you know, this cool
		
00:52:42 --> 00:52:44
			technology and we're gonna make something new. And
		
00:52:44 --> 00:52:45
			then there were libertarians.
		
00:52:46 --> 00:52:48
			These are people who don't trust the currency
		
00:52:48 --> 00:52:50
			that we have right now, and they're more
		
00:52:50 --> 00:52:52
			about having a stable currency, should be gold
		
00:52:52 --> 00:52:54
			backed. People like Ron Paul and, you know,
		
00:52:54 --> 00:52:56
			Rand Paul and all of that. So there
		
00:52:56 --> 00:52:59
			was 2 people who were primarily interested in
		
00:52:59 --> 00:53:00
			in that.
		
00:53:02 --> 00:53:04
			But bitcoin was primarily
		
00:53:04 --> 00:53:07
			supposed to not be exchanged back into currency
		
00:53:07 --> 00:53:09
			and then changed back because that's gonna actually
		
00:53:09 --> 00:53:11
			take you back into the system. So the
		
00:53:11 --> 00:53:14
			libertarians and other people who don't trust
		
00:53:14 --> 00:53:16
			the currency that we use today,
		
00:53:17 --> 00:53:20
			they had a different idea or understanding. Okay?
		
00:53:20 --> 00:53:22
			Now this some of this history is important
		
00:53:22 --> 00:53:23
			to understand the fatwas that are coming on
		
00:53:23 --> 00:53:24
			from different councils.
		
00:53:25 --> 00:53:26
			So what happens?
		
00:53:26 --> 00:53:27
			2011,
		
00:53:28 --> 00:53:30
			or a little bit earlier before that, I
		
00:53:30 --> 00:53:32
			forgot the year. There's a website called Silk
		
00:53:32 --> 00:53:34
			Road which is launched.
		
00:53:34 --> 00:53:36
			How many of you heard of Ebay?
		
00:53:36 --> 00:53:39
			Okay. Heard of Ebay, right? Like Craigslist, Ebay,
		
00:53:39 --> 00:53:42
			you can sell stuff online. So Silk Road
		
00:53:42 --> 00:53:43
			is
		
00:53:44 --> 00:53:44
			like Ebay,
		
00:53:45 --> 00:53:46
			but
		
00:53:46 --> 00:53:49
			it's anonymous and it accepts Bitcoin only. So
		
00:53:49 --> 00:53:51
			the transactions are anonymous.
		
00:53:51 --> 00:53:53
			So you can sell almost anything you want
		
00:53:53 --> 00:53:54
			on on Ebay,
		
00:53:55 --> 00:53:55
			except
		
00:53:56 --> 00:53:57
			things like drugs,
		
00:53:57 --> 00:53:58
			things like weapons,
		
00:53:59 --> 00:54:01
			things like things you shouldn't be selling basically,
		
00:54:01 --> 00:54:02
			which are not allowed.
		
00:54:03 --> 00:54:05
			Silk Road opens up, it's anonymous, it uses
		
00:54:05 --> 00:54:07
			the Tor browser, it has a dot onion
		
00:54:07 --> 00:54:10
			URL, I won't get into that. And
		
00:54:10 --> 00:54:12
			primarily it's being used to sell drugs. Because
		
00:54:13 --> 00:54:15
			you could sell all your other stuff on
		
00:54:15 --> 00:54:16
			on on eBay.
		
00:54:16 --> 00:54:18
			Now obviously the transaction costs are a lot
		
00:54:18 --> 00:54:20
			lower, you don't have to pay, you know,
		
00:54:20 --> 00:54:22
			eBay the same amount of money that you're
		
00:54:22 --> 00:54:24
			paying, or Craigslist or whatever. Craigslist is not
		
00:54:24 --> 00:54:26
			doesn't cost money, but So what happens is
		
00:54:26 --> 00:54:27
			Silk Road
		
00:54:29 --> 00:54:29
			proves
		
00:54:30 --> 00:54:30
			to the world
		
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34
			that people are willing to adopt this technology.
		
00:54:34 --> 00:54:36
			Not for very good reasons, you know, because
		
00:54:36 --> 00:54:38
			they're buying drugs. But they prove that the
		
00:54:38 --> 00:54:39
			technology works,
		
00:54:40 --> 00:54:41
			they prove that
		
00:54:41 --> 00:54:44
			people are able to do it, you know,
		
00:54:44 --> 00:54:46
			it's functional, it's working, people are using this
		
00:54:46 --> 00:54:49
			as a currency, and they're using, you know,
		
00:54:49 --> 00:54:50
			they're they're doing all sorts of weird stuff.
		
00:54:50 --> 00:54:52
			They're buying drugs, there's a guy who's a
		
00:54:52 --> 00:54:53
			hit man and he's like, I can kill
		
00:54:53 --> 00:54:55
			someone for you, you know. Pay me in
		
00:54:55 --> 00:54:57
			bitcoin and it's not traceable, and you know,
		
00:54:57 --> 00:54:58
			I can take care of that. And you
		
00:54:58 --> 00:54:59
			can go on this website and you can
		
00:54:59 --> 00:55:01
			do that. So obviously, Silk Road was shut
		
00:55:01 --> 00:55:02
			down.
		
00:55:02 --> 00:55:04
			Now what happened was in the beginning, if
		
00:55:04 --> 00:55:07
			any of the scholars, they knew about Bitcoin
		
00:55:07 --> 00:55:08
			in the beginning,
		
00:55:08 --> 00:55:10
			when they found out that
		
00:55:10 --> 00:55:13
			Bitcoin was being used for Silk Road to
		
00:55:13 --> 00:55:15
			sell drugs primarily,
		
00:55:16 --> 00:55:17
			what do you think their fatwa is gonna
		
00:55:17 --> 00:55:17
			be?
		
00:55:18 --> 00:55:20
			What is the what what kind of technology
		
00:55:20 --> 00:55:22
			is this? So just so these people can
		
00:55:22 --> 00:55:24
			sell their drugs, you're obviously gonna get a
		
00:55:24 --> 00:55:26
			haram fatwa. Right? And there's very few of
		
00:55:26 --> 00:55:29
			those fatwas early that early. But what's really
		
00:55:29 --> 00:55:31
			interesting is when Silk Road was shut down,
		
00:55:32 --> 00:55:33
			the FBI
		
00:55:33 --> 00:55:34
			confiscated
		
00:55:34 --> 00:55:35
			$13,500,000
		
00:55:37 --> 00:55:39
			worth of bitcoin at that time.
		
00:55:39 --> 00:55:41
			When they confiscate it, what is the FBI
		
00:55:41 --> 00:55:42
			supposed to do with it?
		
00:55:43 --> 00:55:44
			They they don't want just wanna, like, throw
		
00:55:44 --> 00:55:45
			it away.
		
00:55:45 --> 00:55:47
			FBI, you know, they need they need their
		
00:55:47 --> 00:55:50
			money too. Right? So what do they do?
		
00:55:50 --> 00:55:51
			They auction it
		
00:55:51 --> 00:55:52
			and they sell it.
		
00:55:52 --> 00:55:54
			What does that do?
		
00:55:54 --> 00:55:57
			Right? What that does is, it shows that
		
00:55:57 --> 00:55:58
			an American governmental
		
00:55:59 --> 00:55:59
			institution
		
00:56:00 --> 00:56:01
			legitimized
		
00:56:02 --> 00:56:02
			the value
		
00:56:03 --> 00:56:04
			of a digital
		
00:56:04 --> 00:56:05
			decentralized
		
00:56:05 --> 00:56:06
			currency.
		
00:56:06 --> 00:56:08
			And that's a maybe, you know, they probably
		
00:56:08 --> 00:56:11
			didn't think about what the ramifications of that
		
00:56:11 --> 00:56:13
			were, but they're showing that there's some legitimacy
		
00:56:13 --> 00:56:15
			to this. Right? So that was a really
		
00:56:15 --> 00:56:16
			big thing.
		
00:56:16 --> 00:56:17
			Later on,
		
00:56:18 --> 00:56:20
			2014, government said that if you own bitcoin,
		
00:56:20 --> 00:56:22
			you have to pay taxes on it. Because
		
00:56:22 --> 00:56:24
			they were concerned, people have bitcoin and they
		
00:56:24 --> 00:56:26
			have money, like we're losing on taxes. People
		
00:56:26 --> 00:56:27
			are cutting out taxes. So they said, you
		
00:56:27 --> 00:56:29
			know, they issued the American
		
00:56:30 --> 00:56:30
			government fatwa. Right? They said, you gotta pay
		
00:56:30 --> 00:56:31
			taxes. So what does that do? Again, the
		
00:56:31 --> 00:56:32
			government is not supposed to like this idea.
		
00:56:32 --> 00:56:34
			The government is Whoever works for the government,
		
00:56:34 --> 00:56:35
			generally, they don't
		
00:56:35 --> 00:56:37
			like the idea of decentralized currency because it
		
00:56:37 --> 00:56:39
			reduces their power.
		
00:56:44 --> 00:56:47
			Right? But what happens is they're like, but
		
00:56:47 --> 00:56:49
			we're losing taxes. So we at least say,
		
00:56:49 --> 00:56:50
			hey, you gotta pay taxes. What does that
		
00:56:50 --> 00:56:53
			do? It partially shows more legitimacy
		
00:56:53 --> 00:56:55
			to the fact that this is becoming a
		
00:56:55 --> 00:56:55
			currency,
		
00:56:56 --> 00:56:58
			and it's something that actually has value. In
		
00:56:58 --> 00:56:58
			2015,
		
00:56:59 --> 00:57:01
			US government launches something called bit license,
		
00:57:02 --> 00:57:03
			where they're trying to regulate
		
00:57:04 --> 00:57:05
			the use of bitcoin,
		
00:57:05 --> 00:57:07
			and then there was some scandal about all
		
00:57:07 --> 00:57:08
			of that stuff. I won't go into it.
		
00:57:08 --> 00:57:11
			And then what happens is basically now we're
		
00:57:11 --> 00:57:12
			in 2017,
		
00:57:12 --> 00:57:13
			the price
		
00:57:13 --> 00:57:15
			sky skyrockets on Bitcoin,
		
00:57:16 --> 00:57:18
			and now we have people who took
		
00:57:18 --> 00:57:20
			the code that was used for Bitcoin and
		
00:57:20 --> 00:57:22
			they made alternative cryptocurrencies.
		
00:57:23 --> 00:57:24
			So if you go to coinmarketcap.com,
		
00:57:26 --> 00:57:28
			there's about 1500
		
00:57:28 --> 00:57:29
			cryptocurrencies
		
00:57:29 --> 00:57:30
			there today.
		
00:57:30 --> 00:57:32
			And so many of them are just being
		
00:57:32 --> 00:57:34
			made, you know, on a daily basis.
		
00:57:34 --> 00:57:37
			What that basically means is, if you shut
		
00:57:37 --> 00:57:37
			down Bitcoin,
		
00:57:38 --> 00:57:40
			right, if someone says we're gonna absolutely shut
		
00:57:40 --> 00:57:41
			it down and we're gonna stop it from
		
00:57:41 --> 00:57:44
			happening, and, you know, some people have argued
		
00:57:44 --> 00:57:46
			that potentially the NSA
		
00:57:46 --> 00:57:48
			has the computing power, maybe,
		
00:57:49 --> 00:57:49
			to actually
		
00:57:50 --> 00:57:52
			attack. You know, Satoshi said you can't attack
		
00:57:52 --> 00:57:54
			and everything. They have so much computing power,
		
00:57:54 --> 00:57:56
			they could potentially attack it and maybe shut
		
00:57:56 --> 00:57:56
			it down.
		
00:57:57 --> 00:57:58
			But the thing is,
		
00:57:58 --> 00:58:00
			they can shut down 1 cryptocurrency,
		
00:58:01 --> 00:58:02
			or they can shut down bitcoin or something
		
00:58:02 --> 00:58:05
			like that. Within the end of the day,
		
00:58:05 --> 00:58:06
			bitcoin 2.0 will come out.
		
00:58:07 --> 00:58:09
			And they shut that down, bitcoin 3.0 will
		
00:58:09 --> 00:58:11
			come out. Because this is an idea,
		
00:58:12 --> 00:58:14
			and you can't shut down an idea that
		
00:58:14 --> 00:58:15
			people are interested
		
00:58:15 --> 00:58:18
			in. So I'm saying this because people still
		
00:58:18 --> 00:58:19
			have this idea that, oh, this may just
		
00:58:19 --> 00:58:21
			go away. It may just a fad. It'll
		
00:58:21 --> 00:58:22
			just disappear.
		
00:58:22 --> 00:58:24
			As long as people are interested in it,
		
00:58:24 --> 00:58:25
			they're gonna keep it alive kind of no
		
00:58:25 --> 00:58:27
			matter what happens. K?
		
00:58:28 --> 00:58:30
			So that is a little bit about the
		
00:58:30 --> 00:58:32
			histories. Let's go to the pros.
		
00:58:32 --> 00:58:33
			So the pros
		
00:58:34 --> 00:58:35
			of cryptocurrency,
		
00:58:35 --> 00:58:37
			like bitcoin and all the other ones, the
		
00:58:37 --> 00:58:39
			pros are number 1 and why are these
		
00:58:39 --> 00:58:40
			pros important? I'm gonna go to the pros
		
00:58:40 --> 00:58:41
			and the cons.
		
00:58:42 --> 00:58:44
			Because many of the fatwas, the religious rulings,
		
00:58:45 --> 00:58:47
			that are saying it's allowed or it's not
		
00:58:47 --> 00:58:48
			allowed,
		
00:58:48 --> 00:58:51
			they're built on these things. And one of
		
00:58:51 --> 00:58:53
			the things that we saw, what Ibn Rushd
		
00:58:53 --> 00:58:55
			Avarowitz was saying, is that if there's gonna
		
00:58:55 --> 00:58:56
			be harm,
		
00:58:56 --> 00:58:59
			right, dollar or harm that is caused
		
00:59:00 --> 00:59:01
			by this cryptocurrency,
		
00:59:02 --> 00:59:04
			then it should be forbidden in Islam.
		
00:59:04 --> 00:59:06
			But you have to weigh between the pros
		
00:59:06 --> 00:59:08
			and the cons, between the harms and the
		
00:59:08 --> 00:59:11
			benefits that exist when you wanna actually understand
		
00:59:11 --> 00:59:12
			this currency. So let's take a look at
		
00:59:12 --> 00:59:14
			some of the pros. 1st, then we'll go
		
00:59:14 --> 00:59:16
			cons. So some of the pros, reduced transaction
		
00:59:17 --> 00:59:19
			fee. Right? The mid there's no middle man.
		
00:59:19 --> 00:59:21
			So when you're sending there's no bank involved.
		
00:59:21 --> 00:59:23
			Right? So when you send money to someone
		
00:59:23 --> 00:59:25
			else, you don't have to pay these large
		
00:59:25 --> 00:59:27
			transaction fees. So look at, for example,
		
00:59:28 --> 00:59:29
			Western Union,
		
00:59:29 --> 00:59:32
			MoneyGram, you're sending, you know, money to your
		
00:59:32 --> 00:59:34
			family back home. Bitcoin or a cryptocurrency
		
00:59:35 --> 00:59:37
			can replace that because you don't have that
		
00:59:37 --> 00:59:39
			third party asking you to pay all these
		
00:59:39 --> 00:59:41
			transaction fees. Let's take a look at some
		
00:59:41 --> 00:59:42
			statistics here.
		
00:59:42 --> 00:59:43
			$400,000,000,000
		
00:59:45 --> 00:59:45
			yearly
		
00:59:46 --> 00:59:47
			is transferred
		
00:59:47 --> 00:59:48
			from immigrants
		
00:59:49 --> 00:59:51
			back to their families in, like, the poor
		
00:59:51 --> 00:59:53
			countries where they had come from. And when
		
00:59:53 --> 00:59:55
			they transfer it, especially if they're in a
		
00:59:55 --> 00:59:57
			rural area, there's a 9%
		
00:59:57 --> 00:59:58
			service charge.
		
00:59:59 --> 01:00:00
			Now for some of you, you're like, I
		
01:00:00 --> 01:00:01
			could do 9%,
		
01:00:01 --> 01:00:02
			but those people can't.
		
01:00:03 --> 01:00:06
			Like, every percent or half a percent or
		
01:00:06 --> 01:00:08
			fraction of a percent is a very big
		
01:00:08 --> 01:00:10
			thing for them because they're poor. They don't
		
01:00:10 --> 01:00:11
			have the same type of money that we
		
01:00:11 --> 01:00:13
			have. So what's gonna happen
		
01:00:14 --> 01:00:16
			is that the pro of cryptocurrency
		
01:00:17 --> 01:00:19
			allows money transfer to be sent without a
		
01:00:19 --> 01:00:21
			third party, therefore, you can cut the transaction
		
01:00:21 --> 01:00:22
			fees
		
01:00:22 --> 01:00:25
			almost entirely or very significantly.
		
01:00:25 --> 01:00:26
			Okay?
		
01:00:28 --> 01:00:31
			One of the reasons now to defend
		
01:00:32 --> 01:00:33
			the third party a little bit, we don't
		
01:00:33 --> 01:00:35
			want to just keep throwing them under the
		
01:00:35 --> 01:00:38
			bus, The reason why they charge transaction fees
		
01:00:38 --> 01:00:39
			is because,
		
01:00:40 --> 01:00:42
			they have a certain type of insurance. If
		
01:00:42 --> 01:00:44
			you spend you can't spend spend money that
		
01:00:44 --> 01:00:47
			you don't have. If if something happens, there's
		
01:00:47 --> 01:00:48
			a problem, money is stolen from your account
		
01:00:48 --> 01:00:51
			or something, they'll give you some kind of,
		
01:00:51 --> 01:00:52
			you know they're like, oh, we'll take care
		
01:00:52 --> 01:00:54
			of it or we'll reverse a transaction or
		
01:00:54 --> 01:00:56
			something like that. But the good thing about
		
01:00:56 --> 01:00:58
			cryptocurrency is you don't need to convert it.
		
01:00:58 --> 01:01:00
			If the people wanna convert it back into
		
01:01:00 --> 01:01:02
			their local currency, they can. If they don't
		
01:01:02 --> 01:01:04
			wanna convert it back and they wanna just
		
01:01:04 --> 01:01:06
			go and transact between themselves, they can do
		
01:01:06 --> 01:01:08
			it. And this is what happened early on,
		
01:01:08 --> 01:01:10
			I mean, a few years back, in bitcoin,
		
01:01:10 --> 01:01:12
			is that people who started using it, there
		
01:01:12 --> 01:01:14
			were people from poor countries who did not
		
01:01:14 --> 01:01:17
			trust their own governments because their own government
		
01:01:17 --> 01:01:19
			sometimes starts printing so much money, it devalues
		
01:01:19 --> 01:01:21
			the currency. So they're willing to trust anything
		
01:01:21 --> 01:01:23
			else besides their own government, and you have
		
01:01:23 --> 01:01:25
			to understand that. So part of this comes
		
01:01:25 --> 01:01:28
			back down to which government do you live
		
01:01:28 --> 01:01:29
			in and how much do you trust your
		
01:01:29 --> 01:01:30
			government
		
01:01:30 --> 01:01:32
			compared to how much do you trust the
		
01:01:32 --> 01:01:33
			volatility
		
01:01:33 --> 01:01:35
			of a pro of of a technology or
		
01:01:35 --> 01:01:37
			a currency like cryptocurrency.
		
01:01:38 --> 01:01:39
			Alright.
		
01:01:42 --> 01:01:43
			Few few other things.
		
01:01:44 --> 01:01:44
			Most,
		
01:01:45 --> 01:01:48
			people who live in very poor areas, right,
		
01:01:49 --> 01:01:50
			they don't have traditional
		
01:01:51 --> 01:01:54
			bank branch facilities. They're living in farm areas,
		
01:01:54 --> 01:01:57
			rural areas. There's no banks that are being
		
01:01:57 --> 01:01:59
			built. It's very hard or very costly for
		
01:01:59 --> 01:02:01
			someone to set up these type of branch
		
01:02:01 --> 01:02:04
			institutions, they can't do that. With cryptocurrency,
		
01:02:04 --> 01:02:06
			they can be doing that on a digital
		
01:02:06 --> 01:02:06
			scale.
		
01:02:07 --> 01:02:07
			Also,
		
01:02:08 --> 01:02:09
			the idea of,
		
01:02:11 --> 01:02:13
			what was I was gonna say?
		
01:02:15 --> 01:02:17
			I lost my other point. But anyways, people
		
01:02:17 --> 01:02:19
			who are poor areas, they can benefit from
		
01:02:19 --> 01:02:21
			this a lot. The the second,
		
01:02:21 --> 01:02:22
			pro
		
01:02:22 --> 01:02:24
			is that crypto cryptocurrency
		
01:02:24 --> 01:02:25
			is actually
		
01:02:26 --> 01:02:28
			much more difficult to hack
		
01:02:29 --> 01:02:30
			than
		
01:02:30 --> 01:02:31
			other,
		
01:02:31 --> 01:02:34
			companies that have like one server. So the
		
01:02:34 --> 01:02:35
			thing is, this is a common question people
		
01:02:35 --> 01:02:37
			have, like, you know, what if it's hacked
		
01:02:37 --> 01:02:39
			and you lose your money? I mean, JPMorgan
		
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42
			has been hacked. Home Depot has been hacked.
		
01:02:42 --> 01:02:43
			Target has been hacked, and they stole all
		
01:02:43 --> 01:02:45
			the credit cards and all of that stuff.
		
01:02:45 --> 01:02:47
			When you have one server in one place
		
01:02:47 --> 01:02:49
			or in a few places, it's easy it
		
01:02:49 --> 01:02:50
			can be hacked.
		
01:02:50 --> 01:02:52
			Right? When it's distributed, it's a lot more
		
01:02:52 --> 01:02:54
			difficult to hack it. So technically,
		
01:02:54 --> 01:02:56
			you know, you can't shut it down just
		
01:02:56 --> 01:02:58
			by attacking 1 or a few targets. So
		
01:02:58 --> 01:03:00
			it's actually more secure.
		
01:03:00 --> 01:03:02
			You can make the argument that it's more
		
01:03:02 --> 01:03:03
			secure than
		
01:03:04 --> 01:03:04
			centralized,
		
01:03:06 --> 01:03:08
			you know, companies or something like that. Okay?
		
01:03:09 --> 01:03:11
			The 3rd pro is that you can prevent
		
01:03:12 --> 01:03:13
			government manipulation.
		
01:03:14 --> 01:03:16
			Okay. So those of you who followed news
		
01:03:16 --> 01:03:18
			not too long ago, few years back,
		
01:03:18 --> 01:03:19
			look at Zimbabwe.
		
01:03:20 --> 01:03:23
			Zimbabwe's government overprinted money, and their money became
		
01:03:23 --> 01:03:26
			worthless, completely worthless. All the people who had
		
01:03:26 --> 01:03:28
			their money basically became poor overnight.
		
01:03:28 --> 01:03:31
			Their their their Zimbabwe dollar went into like
		
01:03:31 --> 01:03:31
			a 100,000,000,000,000
		
01:03:32 --> 01:03:34
			for like, you know, 100,000,000,000,000 per bill or
		
01:03:34 --> 01:03:36
			something like that. So they overprinted money, you
		
01:03:36 --> 01:03:37
			get hyperinflation,
		
01:03:37 --> 01:03:40
			people lose all of their wealth. So what
		
01:03:40 --> 01:03:42
			happens is that people in Zimbabwe,
		
01:03:43 --> 01:03:44
			they love cryptocurrency.
		
01:03:44 --> 01:03:47
			They're very happy because they're they don't trust
		
01:03:47 --> 01:03:50
			the government to somehow not be prevented from
		
01:03:50 --> 01:03:51
			doing something like this again.
		
01:03:52 --> 01:03:53
			And they already saw what happened to them
		
01:03:53 --> 01:03:55
			or maybe to their parents, you know, just
		
01:03:55 --> 01:03:57
			like a decade ago or something like that.
		
01:03:57 --> 01:04:00
			So the question comes back down to, who
		
01:04:00 --> 01:04:01
			do you trust more?
		
01:04:02 --> 01:04:03
			Because a lot of fatwas that are coming
		
01:04:03 --> 01:04:06
			up by Muslim scholars, they're saying that we
		
01:04:06 --> 01:04:07
			cannot
		
01:04:08 --> 01:04:09
			say
		
01:04:09 --> 01:04:11
			that a decentralized
		
01:04:11 --> 01:04:14
			currency is halal because of the risk that
		
01:04:14 --> 01:04:14
			exists.
		
01:04:16 --> 01:04:18
			But this comes back down to, do you
		
01:04:18 --> 01:04:20
			trust your government more depending on where you
		
01:04:20 --> 01:04:22
			live? Or do you trust a p two
		
01:04:22 --> 01:04:25
			p distributed network around the world more?
		
01:04:25 --> 01:04:28
			That that's not an easy question to answer,
		
01:04:28 --> 01:04:31
			but that plays a role in giving a
		
01:04:31 --> 01:04:32
			final verdict
		
01:04:32 --> 01:04:34
			on what cryptocurrency is gonna be or what
		
01:04:34 --> 01:04:37
			Bitcoin is gonna be. Okay? So many countries
		
01:04:37 --> 01:04:40
			have these problematic histories. Right? So for them,
		
01:04:40 --> 01:04:42
			they don't care if the price is volatile.
		
01:04:42 --> 01:04:44
			At least there's some store of value for
		
01:04:44 --> 01:04:45
			for for cryptocurrency.
		
01:04:45 --> 01:04:47
			The next thing is, oh, yeah. That's the
		
01:04:47 --> 01:04:48
			other point I was gonna make on the
		
01:04:48 --> 01:04:49
			poverty.
		
01:04:50 --> 01:04:52
			Many people cannot open a bank account.
		
01:04:52 --> 01:04:54
			There are many people in the world, they
		
01:04:54 --> 01:04:57
			cannot open a bank account. So how can
		
01:04:57 --> 01:04:59
			they do any type of digital transactions or
		
01:04:59 --> 01:05:02
			something like that? This gives them an opportunity
		
01:05:02 --> 01:05:05
			to be able to participate in, you know,
		
01:05:05 --> 01:05:06
			quick transactions
		
01:05:07 --> 01:05:08
			without having to open a bank account. Let's
		
01:05:08 --> 01:05:11
			say you have a dry cleaning business, for
		
01:05:11 --> 01:05:11
			example,
		
01:05:12 --> 01:05:13
			and you wanna start accepting,
		
01:05:14 --> 01:05:16
			payments from people, digital payments.
		
01:05:17 --> 01:05:19
			What will you have to do normally? You
		
01:05:19 --> 01:05:19
			have to apply
		
01:05:20 --> 01:05:23
			for Visa account, you have to get the
		
01:05:23 --> 01:05:23
			machine,
		
01:05:24 --> 01:05:26
			You know, you have to pay the transaction
		
01:05:26 --> 01:05:26
			fees,
		
01:05:27 --> 01:05:29
			or you could just say, hey. We accept
		
01:05:29 --> 01:05:30
			cryptocurrency.
		
01:05:30 --> 01:05:31
			You know? And then you just have a
		
01:05:31 --> 01:05:33
			cryptocurrency reader there. You can just grab it
		
01:05:33 --> 01:05:34
			from your phone and they can pay you
		
01:05:34 --> 01:05:35
			immediately
		
01:05:35 --> 01:05:39
			very minimal transaction fees. So this becomes very
		
01:05:40 --> 01:05:42
			easy for people to process transactions.
		
01:05:42 --> 01:05:43
			Okay?
		
01:05:43 --> 01:05:45
			And the last pro
		
01:05:45 --> 01:05:47
			again comes back down to trust. So this
		
01:05:47 --> 01:05:49
			happens in history again. In 2010,
		
01:05:51 --> 01:05:52
			there was a website, and there's still a
		
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55
			website, called WikiLeaks. Anyone heard of WikiLeaks?
		
01:05:55 --> 01:05:58
			WikiLeaks basically leaks information about government scandals and
		
01:05:58 --> 01:06:00
			corruption and all that. Whether you fully agree
		
01:06:00 --> 01:06:02
			with them or not, you know, that's that's
		
01:06:02 --> 01:06:03
			a whole another issue.
		
01:06:03 --> 01:06:05
			What ended up happening was in 2010,
		
01:06:06 --> 01:06:08
			the government, because they weren't happy with some
		
01:06:08 --> 01:06:10
			of the information that was being leaked out
		
01:06:10 --> 01:06:11
			about them,
		
01:06:11 --> 01:06:12
			they
		
01:06:12 --> 01:06:13
			suspended
		
01:06:14 --> 01:06:15
			donations to WikiLeaks
		
01:06:16 --> 01:06:16
			through PayPal.
		
01:06:17 --> 01:06:20
			So PayPal was given pressure by the government
		
01:06:20 --> 01:06:22
			says, you're not allowed to process
		
01:06:22 --> 01:06:23
			WikiLeaks
		
01:06:23 --> 01:06:24
			donations
		
01:06:24 --> 01:06:25
			anymore.
		
01:06:25 --> 01:06:27
			And that's how they relied on all of
		
01:06:27 --> 01:06:30
			their money. I mean, there's donation based organization.
		
01:06:30 --> 01:06:31
			So now,
		
01:06:32 --> 01:06:34
			WikiLeaks was thinking, okay, well what are we
		
01:06:34 --> 01:06:36
			gonna do? We're gonna shut down, the government
		
01:06:36 --> 01:06:39
			has forced PayPal to stop dealing with us
		
01:06:39 --> 01:06:42
			because we're exposing some government things.
		
01:06:42 --> 01:06:44
			So what did they do? They said, don't
		
01:06:44 --> 01:06:46
			worry, we're gonna accept bitcoin. And this was
		
01:06:46 --> 01:06:49
			2010, this is very early on. Right? It's
		
01:06:49 --> 01:06:51
			very new. So they said, we will accept
		
01:06:51 --> 01:06:54
			bitcoin, and they started getting
		
01:06:54 --> 01:06:56
			donations in the form of bitcoin. And even
		
01:06:56 --> 01:06:58
			people who did not use bitcoin, they can
		
01:06:58 --> 01:07:00
			convert their dollars into bitcoin or whatever currency,
		
01:07:01 --> 01:07:02
			and then donate back to WikiLeaks.
		
01:07:03 --> 01:07:05
			So they can continue doing the work that
		
01:07:05 --> 01:07:07
			they're doing, especially if you agree with that
		
01:07:07 --> 01:07:07
			work.
		
01:07:08 --> 01:07:09
			So what that does
		
01:07:09 --> 01:07:10
			is
		
01:07:10 --> 01:07:13
			that's potentially a pro, assuming that you support
		
01:07:13 --> 01:07:16
			WikiLeaks, which I, for the most part, do.
		
01:07:17 --> 01:07:18
			So what that does
		
01:07:19 --> 01:07:20
			is allows
		
01:07:21 --> 01:07:22
			people who are doing good work
		
01:07:23 --> 01:07:26
			to kind of go beyond and not be
		
01:07:26 --> 01:07:26
			regulated
		
01:07:27 --> 01:07:28
			by government, who may have
		
01:07:29 --> 01:07:32
			an agenda to, you know, to protect themselves
		
01:07:32 --> 01:07:35
			or cover up scandals or cover up things
		
01:07:35 --> 01:07:37
			that probably shouldn't be covered up in the
		
01:07:37 --> 01:07:38
			first place.
		
01:07:38 --> 01:07:39
			So so that
		
01:07:40 --> 01:07:42
			that was a very important thing. So these
		
01:07:42 --> 01:07:44
			are some of the pros of cryptocurrency.
		
01:07:44 --> 01:07:47
			Okay? Let's go to the cons
		
01:07:47 --> 01:07:48
			of cryptocurrency.
		
01:07:48 --> 01:07:50
			Alright. So some of the cons,
		
01:07:50 --> 01:07:52
			and we're almost done. We're not that far.
		
01:07:52 --> 01:07:53
			Okay?
		
01:07:54 --> 01:07:55
			We talked about Silk Road,
		
01:07:56 --> 01:07:57
			opened in 2011.
		
01:07:57 --> 01:07:59
			They started, you know, selling all this bad
		
01:07:59 --> 01:08:01
			stuff. So it's a problem.
		
01:08:01 --> 01:08:03
			You can do bad things with cryptocurrency.
		
01:08:04 --> 01:08:06
			There was a guy you heard anyone heard
		
01:08:06 --> 01:08:07
			of 3 d printers? You know, 3 d
		
01:08:07 --> 01:08:09
			printing? Right? So one guy came up with
		
01:08:09 --> 01:08:11
			an idea, he said, I'm gonna make,
		
01:08:12 --> 01:08:14
			he went on Indiegogo, which is like a
		
01:08:14 --> 01:08:16
			crowd funding place. And he said, I made
		
01:08:16 --> 01:08:18
			a schematic I'm making a schematic
		
01:08:19 --> 01:08:20
			for a gun.
		
01:08:21 --> 01:08:22
			I sell you the schematic, you put it
		
01:08:22 --> 01:08:24
			into your 3 d printer, and you can
		
01:08:24 --> 01:08:25
			print your own gun.
		
01:08:26 --> 01:08:28
			It's kind of cool, but it's kinda dangerous,
		
01:08:28 --> 01:08:30
			because then anyone can print their own gun,
		
01:08:30 --> 01:08:32
			and it's actually gonna be a functional gun.
		
01:08:32 --> 01:08:33
			So Indiegogo
		
01:08:34 --> 01:08:36
			shut him down and said, you're not allowed
		
01:08:36 --> 01:08:37
			to do this. You know, this is not
		
01:08:37 --> 01:08:38
			acceptable.
		
01:08:39 --> 01:08:40
			So if he wanted to go and say,
		
01:08:40 --> 01:08:42
			okay, well, I have Silk Road or I
		
01:08:42 --> 01:08:44
			have I'll accept Bitcoin. I don't need to
		
01:08:44 --> 01:08:46
			accept your money. I can go ahead and
		
01:08:46 --> 01:08:48
			continue to sell it. You say, well, there's
		
01:08:48 --> 01:08:51
			a con there. This allows bad people to
		
01:08:51 --> 01:08:53
			do bad things and it makes it easier
		
01:08:53 --> 01:08:54
			for them.
		
01:08:54 --> 01:08:56
			So that's in one argument that people are
		
01:08:56 --> 01:08:59
			saying when it comes to why cryptocurrency should
		
01:08:59 --> 01:09:01
			be forbidden in Islam from an Islamic perspective.
		
01:09:02 --> 01:09:04
			Of course, he could still go and sell
		
01:09:04 --> 01:09:05
			it, you know, to his friends for cash,
		
01:09:05 --> 01:09:07
			you know, if he wanted to. But this
		
01:09:07 --> 01:09:09
			just makes it easier. So it makes it
		
01:09:09 --> 01:09:10
			easier for good people to do good, and
		
01:09:10 --> 01:09:12
			it makes it easier for bad people to
		
01:09:12 --> 01:09:14
			do bad, and that's where you need to
		
01:09:14 --> 01:09:16
			kind of, you know, draw a line somewhere.
		
01:09:16 --> 01:09:19
			Right? So at what point does it become
		
01:09:19 --> 01:09:20
			so bad
		
01:09:21 --> 01:09:22
			that we need to say, hey, this is
		
01:09:22 --> 01:09:23
			something that should be stopped.
		
01:09:24 --> 01:09:26
			Like, I mean, criminals use email too. Right?
		
01:09:26 --> 01:09:28
			To do their meetups and stuff like that.
		
01:09:28 --> 01:09:29
			Are we gonna shut down email? Are we
		
01:09:29 --> 01:09:31
			gonna regulate things like that? So that's the
		
01:09:31 --> 01:09:33
			question. Governments who are shutting down social media
		
01:09:33 --> 01:09:36
			during protests and all of that. So that's
		
01:09:36 --> 01:09:37
			something. Another con
		
01:09:37 --> 01:09:38
			is that the,
		
01:09:41 --> 01:09:43
			what are they called? SubhanAllah. I'm drawing a
		
01:09:43 --> 01:09:45
			blank right now. The place where you exchange
		
01:09:45 --> 01:09:46
			Bitcoin.
		
01:09:49 --> 01:09:51
			This is another name for ex what exchange?
		
01:09:52 --> 01:09:53
			What is it called?
		
01:09:57 --> 01:09:59
			No. No. Not blockchain. Anyways, okay.
		
01:10:00 --> 01:10:02
			The the exchanges. Okay? The exchanges that exist
		
01:10:02 --> 01:10:05
			when people wanna exchange, one of them was
		
01:10:05 --> 01:10:07
			a big one was called Mount Gox.
		
01:10:07 --> 01:10:10
			Mount Gox basically is one example of a
		
01:10:10 --> 01:10:12
			big thing that happened where
		
01:10:12 --> 01:10:13
			we had
		
01:10:13 --> 01:10:14
			half a $1,000,000,000
		
01:10:16 --> 01:10:17
			of missing Bitcoins
		
01:10:18 --> 01:10:20
			from this company where people were storing their
		
01:10:20 --> 01:10:23
			Bitcoins. Right? So that's 6% of the total
		
01:10:23 --> 01:10:24
			circulation of Bitcoins,
		
01:10:24 --> 01:10:26
			and they're either stolen or they're lost or
		
01:10:26 --> 01:10:28
			they somehow disappeared. Now this is not a
		
01:10:28 --> 01:10:30
			problem in the Bitcoin network. This is a
		
01:10:30 --> 01:10:32
			problem in that specific exchange.
		
01:10:33 --> 01:10:34
			Right? And then they caught the guy and
		
01:10:34 --> 01:10:35
			they were trying to figure out, and the
		
01:10:35 --> 01:10:37
			guy was moved to Japan and he was
		
01:10:37 --> 01:10:39
			arrested in Japan and all of that. So
		
01:10:39 --> 01:10:41
			the issue comes back down to
		
01:10:41 --> 01:10:45
			these currency exchanges or or cryptocurrency exchanges,
		
01:10:45 --> 01:10:47
			they are a form of a third party
		
01:10:48 --> 01:10:50
			introduced into a decentralized
		
01:10:50 --> 01:10:52
			system that's not supposed to have a third
		
01:10:52 --> 01:10:54
			party for convenience.
		
01:10:54 --> 01:10:56
			So you have to be able to trust
		
01:10:56 --> 01:10:57
			your 3rd party. So you're gonna have some
		
01:10:57 --> 01:11:01
			people who are 3rd parties, which are Bitcoin
		
01:11:01 --> 01:11:02
			exchanges or or cryptocurrency
		
01:11:02 --> 01:11:05
			exchanges, and if they're not regulated well,
		
01:11:06 --> 01:11:07
			they can be ripping off a lot of
		
01:11:07 --> 01:11:08
			people.
		
01:11:08 --> 01:11:10
			And that's kinda what happened with Mt. Gox
		
01:11:10 --> 01:11:12
			probably, and that's what happened with a few
		
01:11:12 --> 01:11:15
			other cases. So the argument is made is
		
01:11:15 --> 01:11:16
			that when you have the government
		
01:11:17 --> 01:11:17
			regulating
		
01:11:18 --> 01:11:20
			banks at least, you have more protection because
		
01:11:20 --> 01:11:22
			there's a set of regulations there. Whereas when
		
01:11:22 --> 01:11:24
			someone's doing this and they're not being regulated,
		
01:11:25 --> 01:11:26
			there's a lot more danger for people to
		
01:11:26 --> 01:11:29
			get scammed and lose all of their money.
		
01:11:29 --> 01:11:31
			So that's another argument that feeds into it.
		
01:11:31 --> 01:11:33
			And the last argument, the last con, really
		
01:11:33 --> 01:11:36
			is that Bitcoin is very volatile.
		
01:11:37 --> 01:11:40
			Right? Has a market cap trading, you know,
		
01:11:40 --> 01:11:40
			very high.
		
01:11:41 --> 01:11:44
			Lot of bitcoin is basically held for speculation
		
01:11:44 --> 01:11:47
			purposes. So you see the price is fluctuating.
		
01:11:48 --> 01:11:49
			Like I said before, a lot of people
		
01:11:49 --> 01:11:50
			lost a lot of money, a lot of
		
01:11:50 --> 01:11:52
			people made a lot of money, or maybe
		
01:11:52 --> 01:11:53
			some people made a lot of money, most
		
01:11:53 --> 01:11:55
			people probably got too greedy and kept spending
		
01:11:55 --> 01:11:57
			and lost a lot of money. So
		
01:11:58 --> 01:11:59
			comes back down to
		
01:12:00 --> 01:12:01
			the purpose of money.
		
01:12:01 --> 01:12:04
			What is the purpose of money? Money has
		
01:12:04 --> 01:12:06
			3 purposes according to economist. Number 1, it's
		
01:12:06 --> 01:12:07
			a measure of value.
		
01:12:08 --> 01:12:11
			In that sense, to summarize bitcoin, like other
		
01:12:11 --> 01:12:13
			type of currency, is a measure of value.
		
01:12:13 --> 01:12:15
			It has a fixed value even though it
		
01:12:15 --> 01:12:17
			fluctuates, and it helps measure things for people.
		
01:12:17 --> 01:12:20
			Number 2, it's a medium of exchange.
		
01:12:20 --> 01:12:21
			Cryptocurrency
		
01:12:22 --> 01:12:24
			is an excellent medium of exchange
		
01:12:24 --> 01:12:27
			because there's no third party and transaction cost
		
01:12:27 --> 01:12:28
			it's quick transactions,
		
01:12:29 --> 01:12:31
			and the costs are very very low,
		
01:12:31 --> 01:12:32
			because of that technology.
		
01:12:33 --> 01:12:34
			And then the third,
		
01:12:35 --> 01:12:37
			you know, the third purpose of money is
		
01:12:37 --> 01:12:39
			that it's a store of value.
		
01:12:39 --> 01:12:41
			Something where you're gonna keep it for a
		
01:12:41 --> 01:12:42
			long time, and you hope that it continues
		
01:12:42 --> 01:12:44
			to maintain its value.
		
01:12:44 --> 01:12:45
			The problem
		
01:12:46 --> 01:12:46
			with cryptocurrency
		
01:12:47 --> 01:12:49
			right now is that it's extremely,
		
01:12:49 --> 01:12:52
			volatile. So it's not a very good store
		
01:12:52 --> 01:12:54
			of value currently, right now.
		
01:12:54 --> 01:12:57
			But it's been argued in many papers and
		
01:12:57 --> 01:12:59
			all of that, Journal of Islamic Economics
		
01:13:00 --> 01:13:01
			had a paper on this,
		
01:13:02 --> 01:13:03
			that because
		
01:13:04 --> 01:13:04
			inflation
		
01:13:05 --> 01:13:07
			exists in the other fiat currencies,
		
01:13:08 --> 01:13:10
			and that's just the way the banking system,
		
01:13:10 --> 01:13:13
			you know, functions, because there's a cap on
		
01:13:13 --> 01:13:15
			the amount of bitcoins that could be produced
		
01:13:15 --> 01:13:17
			and other cryptocurrencies may have their own, you
		
01:13:17 --> 01:13:18
			know, versions of things,
		
01:13:18 --> 01:13:21
			that it could potentially serve in the future
		
01:13:21 --> 01:13:24
			as a better store of value than the
		
01:13:24 --> 01:13:26
			current currency that we actually have if it
		
01:13:26 --> 01:13:26
			stabilizes.
		
01:13:27 --> 01:13:28
			Okay. So
		
01:13:29 --> 01:13:31
			the last thing
		
01:13:31 --> 01:13:33
			is we have a few questions about Islamic
		
01:13:33 --> 01:13:35
			legality. So we talked about the principles,
		
01:13:35 --> 01:13:37
			we talked about the philosophy behind currency and
		
01:13:37 --> 01:13:39
			money and what it means, and then we
		
01:13:39 --> 01:13:43
			talk about the philosophy of Islamic principles which
		
01:13:43 --> 01:13:44
			could potentially make it haram.
		
01:13:45 --> 01:13:47
			These three things have to all be understood
		
01:13:48 --> 01:13:51
			before we come to a conclusion on something.
		
01:13:51 --> 01:13:52
			So
		
01:13:52 --> 01:13:54
			few questions that people have,
		
01:13:55 --> 01:13:59
			that comes out and make arguments. Right? Number
		
01:13:59 --> 01:13:59
			1,
		
01:14:00 --> 01:14:02
			the question that we have to ask is,
		
01:14:02 --> 01:14:02
			how is
		
01:14:03 --> 01:14:03
			cryptocurrency
		
01:14:04 --> 01:14:05
			different enough
		
01:14:06 --> 01:14:07
			from fiat currency
		
01:14:08 --> 01:14:10
			that makes 1 halal and the other haram?
		
01:14:11 --> 01:14:13
			I mean most almost everyone says that fiat
		
01:14:13 --> 01:14:16
			currency is halal. Whether you think it's intrinsically
		
01:14:16 --> 01:14:18
			halal or halal because by necessity,
		
01:14:18 --> 01:14:21
			we use it. Right? No scholar is gonna
		
01:14:21 --> 01:14:22
			come and say, you know, the $100 bill
		
01:14:22 --> 01:14:24
			that I have in my pocket, that's actually
		
01:14:24 --> 01:14:26
			haram. You know, because they have to, you
		
01:14:26 --> 01:14:29
			know, use currency as well. Not gonna function
		
01:14:29 --> 01:14:32
			in life. So the question is now, it's
		
01:14:32 --> 01:14:34
			not about what is ideally Islamic.
		
01:14:35 --> 01:14:37
			How is cryptocurrency
		
01:14:38 --> 01:14:39
			different from a fiat currencies,
		
01:14:40 --> 01:14:42
			such that one could potentially be halal, which
		
01:14:42 --> 01:14:44
			is fiat, and the other one could be
		
01:14:44 --> 01:14:45
			haram? That's a question
		
01:14:45 --> 01:14:46
			that
		
01:14:47 --> 01:14:49
			I think people are not giving a very
		
01:14:49 --> 01:14:51
			clear answer to when they say that it's
		
01:14:51 --> 01:14:53
			haram, and I'll come back to that. Number
		
01:14:53 --> 01:14:53
			2,
		
01:14:54 --> 01:14:57
			objection comes is that it's just digital. It
		
01:14:57 --> 01:14:58
			has no real value.
		
01:14:59 --> 01:15:01
			It has no physical existence.
		
01:15:01 --> 01:15:03
			As I mentioned to you before,
		
01:15:03 --> 01:15:05
			money in today's economic system,
		
01:15:06 --> 01:15:07
			fiat currency
		
01:15:07 --> 01:15:09
			has no real value either.
		
01:15:10 --> 01:15:12
			I'm sorry to say, there's no actual value,
		
01:15:12 --> 01:15:14
			commodity type value for that thing. And then
		
01:15:14 --> 01:15:16
			when it comes to the idea has no
		
01:15:16 --> 01:15:17
			physical existence.
		
01:15:18 --> 01:15:19
			Right? The money
		
01:15:19 --> 01:15:22
			inside the banking system with the fractional reserve
		
01:15:22 --> 01:15:24
			system, the 90% or whatever, it has,
		
01:15:25 --> 01:15:28
			it has no physical existence either. It's a
		
01:15:28 --> 01:15:31
			number in a ledger, which is exactly what
		
01:15:31 --> 01:15:31
			cryptocurrency
		
01:15:31 --> 01:15:34
			is. It's a number in a ledger, and
		
01:15:34 --> 01:15:35
			that ledger is distributed.
		
01:15:36 --> 01:15:37
			And the difference is the ledger of a
		
01:15:37 --> 01:15:40
			central government is kept in, you know, is
		
01:15:40 --> 01:15:43
			is controlled by a central system. So
		
01:15:44 --> 01:15:47
			the next question that gets asked is, how
		
01:15:47 --> 01:15:48
			do you classify
		
01:15:48 --> 01:15:49
			cryptocurrency?
		
01:15:50 --> 01:15:52
			Is it a digital asset?
		
01:15:52 --> 01:15:54
			Is it a commodity currency?
		
01:15:54 --> 01:15:56
			Is it a representative currency?
		
01:15:56 --> 01:15:58
			Or is it a, fiat currency?
		
01:15:59 --> 01:16:00
			So the answer
		
01:16:00 --> 01:16:03
			alright. Let's work through it real quick. Is
		
01:16:03 --> 01:16:04
			it a commodity currency?
		
01:16:05 --> 01:16:07
			No. Because it's not tied to any commodity.
		
01:16:07 --> 01:16:09
			Is it a representative currency?
		
01:16:10 --> 01:16:12
			No. Is it a fiat currency?
		
01:16:13 --> 01:16:15
			Because there's no government. Right? No fiat. Is
		
01:16:15 --> 01:16:16
			it a digital asset?
		
01:16:18 --> 01:16:19
			Is it an asset?
		
01:16:20 --> 01:16:23
			This is where it matters. Right? So the
		
01:16:23 --> 01:16:25
			answer is, is it a digital asset or
		
01:16:25 --> 01:16:27
			is it a digital currency?
		
01:16:28 --> 01:16:29
			Why does this matter?
		
01:16:30 --> 01:16:32
			This plays a very big role in giving
		
01:16:32 --> 01:16:35
			the Islamic answer. Because if it's an asset,
		
01:16:36 --> 01:16:38
			you're allowed to have what's called riba on
		
01:16:38 --> 01:16:41
			it. Riba meaning you can charge a profit.
		
01:16:41 --> 01:16:43
			Because an asset, you can charge a profit
		
01:16:43 --> 01:16:45
			on top of it. If it's a digital
		
01:16:45 --> 01:16:46
			currency,
		
01:16:46 --> 01:16:49
			you cannot have currency switched with another currency
		
01:16:49 --> 01:16:52
			for more value because that's the very definition
		
01:16:52 --> 01:16:53
			of interest.
		
01:16:53 --> 01:16:56
			So defining it as being a currency versus
		
01:16:56 --> 01:16:58
			an asset is extremely important. And you find
		
01:16:58 --> 01:17:00
			a lot of different papers coming out on
		
01:17:00 --> 01:17:02
			this from different, you know, Muslim scholars in
		
01:17:02 --> 01:17:04
			different think tanks saying one that it's an
		
01:17:04 --> 01:17:07
			asset, therefore we're actually allowed to charge, you
		
01:17:07 --> 01:17:09
			know, a type of interest or this additional
		
01:17:09 --> 01:17:10
			profit on it. The other one is saying,
		
01:17:10 --> 01:17:13
			no. You cannot do that because it functions
		
01:17:13 --> 01:17:15
			like a currency. It was designed like a
		
01:17:15 --> 01:17:17
			currency. Its original purpose was to be a
		
01:17:17 --> 01:17:18
			currency. So how did you all of a
		
01:17:18 --> 01:17:20
			sudden give it to be the idea of
		
01:17:20 --> 01:17:22
			a digital asset? So I think that
		
01:17:22 --> 01:17:25
			it's a very weak argument personally, the to
		
01:17:25 --> 01:17:28
			to classify it as a digital asset. So
		
01:17:28 --> 01:17:30
			the idea, do the rules of riba actually
		
01:17:30 --> 01:17:30
			apply,
		
01:17:31 --> 01:17:32
			to it
		
01:17:32 --> 01:17:34
			because it's digital currency?
		
01:17:34 --> 01:17:37
			The answer is the meaning the prohibition of
		
01:17:37 --> 01:17:38
			riba, does it apply to it? Can you
		
01:17:38 --> 01:17:41
			trade 1 Bitcoin for 2 Bitcoins,
		
01:17:41 --> 01:17:43
			you know, on deferred payment or something like
		
01:17:43 --> 01:17:45
			that? The answer is yes. The rules of
		
01:17:45 --> 01:17:47
			riba apply to it, meaning you're not supposed
		
01:17:47 --> 01:17:49
			to be doing any type of interest on
		
01:17:49 --> 01:17:52
			it. Alright. The next question is,
		
01:17:52 --> 01:17:54
			a lot of fatwas have come out saying
		
01:17:54 --> 01:17:55
			that
		
01:17:55 --> 01:17:57
			if you do not have government control of
		
01:17:57 --> 01:17:58
			a currency,
		
01:17:58 --> 01:18:00
			the fatwa should be that it's haram because
		
01:18:00 --> 01:18:02
			of the amount of harm that can come.
		
01:18:03 --> 01:18:04
			This is
		
01:18:04 --> 01:18:07
			the most common thread that I've I've gone
		
01:18:07 --> 01:18:09
			through about, you know, 10 different papers and
		
01:18:09 --> 01:18:10
			like, you know, 10:10
		
01:18:10 --> 01:18:13
			more different articles on it by different, you
		
01:18:13 --> 01:18:15
			know, Muslim scholars. This is one of the
		
01:18:15 --> 01:18:18
			very common arguments that you find throughout most
		
01:18:18 --> 01:18:20
			of the papers. Is that do you need
		
01:18:20 --> 01:18:21
			to have
		
01:18:21 --> 01:18:21
			government
		
01:18:22 --> 01:18:23
			controlling currency
		
01:18:24 --> 01:18:27
			in order to say that it's safe enough
		
01:18:27 --> 01:18:29
			to not cause a great amount of harm
		
01:18:29 --> 01:18:30
			in society?
		
01:18:30 --> 01:18:32
			I think this is very debatable, and this
		
01:18:32 --> 01:18:34
			is something that really we need to be
		
01:18:34 --> 01:18:37
			working this out. Because what's going on here
		
01:18:37 --> 01:18:38
			is that
		
01:18:39 --> 01:18:41
			we have a lot of things that government
		
01:18:41 --> 01:18:44
			don't necessarily have control over. Even in America.
		
01:18:44 --> 01:18:45
			Like for example,
		
01:18:45 --> 01:18:47
			anyone use Tor browser?
		
01:18:47 --> 01:18:48
			Tor?
		
01:18:48 --> 01:18:49
			So Tor is a browser.
		
01:18:50 --> 01:18:52
			It's called the onion relay, t o r.
		
01:18:52 --> 01:18:55
			It's an anonymous browser. It was developed by
		
01:18:55 --> 01:18:55
			the government.
		
01:18:56 --> 01:18:58
			Developed by the government.
		
01:18:58 --> 01:19:00
			And when you use it, you cannot be
		
01:19:00 --> 01:19:03
			traced back. You can make an anonymous website,
		
01:19:04 --> 01:19:06
			you can, you know, you know, surf anonymously,
		
01:19:06 --> 01:19:10
			and it's very, very difficult, even for NSA
		
01:19:10 --> 01:19:12
			or someone to actually be able to trace
		
01:19:12 --> 01:19:13
			where you're going through FBI and all of
		
01:19:13 --> 01:19:14
			that stuff. Right?
		
01:19:16 --> 01:19:17
			But it's allowed.
		
01:19:18 --> 01:19:19
			It's not banned.
		
01:19:19 --> 01:19:21
			Right? And in many places, it's there. There
		
01:19:21 --> 01:19:23
			are, you know so so we need to
		
01:19:23 --> 01:19:25
			be very very careful. And I say we,
		
01:19:25 --> 01:19:26
			I mean like, you know, Muslims in in
		
01:19:26 --> 01:19:29
			general in our attitude and our outlook, before
		
01:19:29 --> 01:19:32
			we say before we become pro government versus
		
01:19:32 --> 01:19:35
			anti government, we need to really weigh the
		
01:19:35 --> 01:19:36
			pros and cons. And I know that people
		
01:19:36 --> 01:19:39
			come from different backgrounds. We're in Southern California,
		
01:19:39 --> 01:19:41
			I think a lot of young people,
		
01:19:41 --> 01:19:43
			they're very anti government. They're like, you know,
		
01:19:43 --> 01:19:45
			anarchy, we're gonna take over, you know, we
		
01:19:45 --> 01:19:47
			can't trust these governments. The other people are
		
01:19:47 --> 01:19:48
			very pro governments, and you know, you have
		
01:19:48 --> 01:19:50
			to have government to regulate things and keep
		
01:19:50 --> 01:19:51
			things in control and order.
		
01:19:52 --> 01:19:53
			Both of these things are true. We have
		
01:19:53 --> 01:19:56
			to have a a balance between them.
		
01:19:56 --> 01:19:58
			But when you're out of balance, then
		
01:19:58 --> 01:20:00
			there's a problem. Right? So that's where,
		
01:20:01 --> 01:20:02
			in my opinion,
		
01:20:02 --> 01:20:04
			Muslim scholars need to be
		
01:20:05 --> 01:20:06
			very very careful
		
01:20:06 --> 01:20:10
			of taking a side on this political issue,
		
01:20:11 --> 01:20:13
			which really varies with time and place. It
		
01:20:13 --> 01:20:14
			varies from country to country. It varies with
		
01:20:14 --> 01:20:18
			political circumstances when you're assessing harm versus benefit.
		
01:20:18 --> 01:20:18
			K?
		
01:20:19 --> 01:20:19
			The next,
		
01:20:20 --> 01:20:22
			argument is that there's no spending protection. So
		
01:20:22 --> 01:20:23
			when you spend,
		
01:20:23 --> 01:20:26
			bitcoin, or let's say someone comes and robs
		
01:20:26 --> 01:20:28
			you, and they put a gun to your
		
01:20:28 --> 01:20:29
			head, which happened recently to 1 guy,
		
01:20:30 --> 01:20:32
			actually happened in Turkey, recently.
		
01:20:33 --> 01:20:34
			Took $3,000,000
		
01:20:34 --> 01:20:35
			$3,000,000
		
01:20:35 --> 01:20:37
			worth of bitcoin from him,
		
01:20:37 --> 01:20:39
			forced him to log in to his password
		
01:20:39 --> 01:20:40
			and and do it. Now if they did
		
01:20:40 --> 01:20:41
			that somewhere else,
		
01:20:42 --> 01:20:44
			at least you have a centralized, you know,
		
01:20:44 --> 01:20:46
			bank or a a third party can come
		
01:20:46 --> 01:20:48
			in and kinda reverse the transaction or trace
		
01:20:48 --> 01:20:50
			the transaction. Here it's very anonymous.
		
01:20:51 --> 01:20:52
			So that,
		
01:20:52 --> 01:20:55
			is a potential objection that people you cannot
		
01:20:55 --> 01:20:56
			reverse the transaction.
		
01:20:56 --> 01:20:59
			You you pretty much can't trace the transaction
		
01:20:59 --> 01:20:59
			exactly.
		
01:21:00 --> 01:21:00
			But then
		
01:21:01 --> 01:21:03
			the flip side to that is
		
01:21:03 --> 01:21:05
			what is the flip what is the answer
		
01:21:05 --> 01:21:06
			to that objection?
		
01:21:08 --> 01:21:08
			Anyone?
		
01:21:10 --> 01:21:11
			That's like cash.
		
01:21:12 --> 01:21:13
			You can't do it. I mean, if you
		
01:21:13 --> 01:21:15
			give someone comes and you have a lot
		
01:21:15 --> 01:21:17
			of cash on you, they're gonna steal it
		
01:21:17 --> 01:21:18
			from you too, and you can't reverse the
		
01:21:18 --> 01:21:19
			transaction.
		
01:21:19 --> 01:21:21
			And you can't trace the transaction because there's
		
01:21:21 --> 01:21:22
			no, you know,
		
01:21:22 --> 01:21:25
			tracing mechanism on that cash. Right? So it
		
01:21:25 --> 01:21:26
			makes it easier. Like I said, it makes
		
01:21:26 --> 01:21:28
			it easier to do good and it makes
		
01:21:28 --> 01:21:29
			it easier to do bad.
		
01:21:30 --> 01:21:31
			And we need to be careful where we're
		
01:21:31 --> 01:21:33
			supposed to draw the line there. K? The
		
01:21:33 --> 01:21:35
			next thing is, what if someone shuts it
		
01:21:35 --> 01:21:36
			down, you lose all your money? I've already
		
01:21:36 --> 01:21:39
			addressed this issue. What amount of regulation So
		
01:21:39 --> 01:21:41
			this is my question. To people who say
		
01:21:41 --> 01:21:43
			that it's forbidden, it's haram
		
01:21:43 --> 01:21:46
			because there's no regulation on it. The question
		
01:21:46 --> 01:21:48
			is, what amount of regulation would make it
		
01:21:48 --> 01:21:49
			halal?
		
01:21:50 --> 01:21:52
			There's no clear cut answer here, but this
		
01:21:52 --> 01:21:53
			is a question that I'm throwing out.
		
01:21:54 --> 01:21:56
			What amount of regulation is needed? To what
		
01:21:56 --> 01:21:59
			extent has has it to be regulated in
		
01:21:59 --> 01:22:01
			order for it to become halal, whereas on
		
01:22:01 --> 01:22:03
			the other side it crosses, you know, the
		
01:22:03 --> 01:22:05
			haram thing. And then of course, it's it's
		
01:22:05 --> 01:22:07
			anonymous. So if it's anonymous, then, you know,
		
01:22:07 --> 01:22:09
			how you know, it's a it's a problem.
		
01:22:09 --> 01:22:11
			Cash is anonymous too. In fact, cash is
		
01:22:11 --> 01:22:14
			technically more anonymous than cryptocurrency
		
01:22:14 --> 01:22:16
			because at least there's a ledger of cryptocurrency.
		
01:22:17 --> 01:22:18
			Even if you can't trace it back, it
		
01:22:18 --> 01:22:21
			exists. The transaction logs exist,
		
01:22:21 --> 01:22:23
			whereas cash doesn't exist. K?
		
01:22:24 --> 01:22:26
			So conclusions, and then I'll take questions.
		
01:22:26 --> 01:22:29
			So there have been several claims of cryptocurrency
		
01:22:29 --> 01:22:32
			being haram, and there's a few claims of
		
01:22:32 --> 01:22:35
			cryptocurrency being halal, right, which was the default
		
01:22:35 --> 01:22:35
			position.
		
01:22:36 --> 01:22:37
			So among the people who declared it haram,
		
01:22:37 --> 01:22:39
			I've come across several,
		
01:22:40 --> 01:22:40
			clear cut
		
01:22:41 --> 01:22:44
			answers. Grand Mufti of Egypt declared it haram
		
01:22:44 --> 01:22:45
			in January 2018.
		
01:22:46 --> 01:22:48
			The director of religious affairs, Diana, in Turkey
		
01:22:48 --> 01:22:49
			in 2017
		
01:22:50 --> 01:22:53
			declared it banned, basically, and and haram.
		
01:22:53 --> 01:22:54
			And,
		
01:22:55 --> 01:22:57
			there's other scholars. One research paper came out
		
01:22:57 --> 01:23:00
			of Madinah University declaring it to be haram,
		
01:23:02 --> 01:23:03
			and a few others.
		
01:23:03 --> 01:23:04
			Few people,
		
01:23:05 --> 01:23:07
			Diovan as well. Yeah. Diovan actually
		
01:23:07 --> 01:23:10
			was really on this long time ago, saying
		
01:23:10 --> 01:23:12
			that it's also, forbidden.
		
01:23:13 --> 01:23:15
			Then we have some Islamic councils in Malaysia.
		
01:23:15 --> 01:23:17
			We have few people like Sheikh Joe Bradford,
		
01:23:17 --> 01:23:20
			some other people who said, no. It's actually
		
01:23:20 --> 01:23:21
			halal as a as a technology.
		
01:23:22 --> 01:23:24
			Now be careful. As a technology
		
01:23:24 --> 01:23:27
			in terms of the transaction. K. So what
		
01:23:27 --> 01:23:28
			are the reasons why did they say it's
		
01:23:28 --> 01:23:32
			haram? Comes down to these answers. Number 1,
		
01:23:32 --> 01:23:34
			they say that there's a risk of fraud,
		
01:23:35 --> 01:23:37
			and you can cheat because there's no centralized
		
01:23:37 --> 01:23:37
			surveillance.
		
01:23:38 --> 01:23:40
			So you need to have centralized surveillance to
		
01:23:40 --> 01:23:42
			protect risk to fraud. Number 2, it can
		
01:23:42 --> 01:23:43
			be used to fund terrorism.
		
01:23:43 --> 01:23:46
			Number 3, it helps you know, it's easier
		
01:23:46 --> 01:23:48
			to launder money, so it engages in money
		
01:23:48 --> 01:23:50
			laundering. Number 4, there's a high level of
		
01:23:50 --> 01:23:52
			volatility, so it's always going up and down.
		
01:23:52 --> 01:23:54
			There's a lot of risk. This can potentially
		
01:23:54 --> 01:23:57
			this is ghhar, uncertainty because of the high
		
01:23:57 --> 01:23:58
			amount of risk and volatility.
		
01:23:59 --> 01:24:01
			Number 5, it's issued by an unknown body
		
01:24:01 --> 01:24:03
			or an unknown group. So we don't know
		
01:24:03 --> 01:24:06
			who who controls it. I mean, that's that's
		
01:24:06 --> 01:24:08
			a I think one of the poorest arguments
		
01:24:08 --> 01:24:08
			because
		
01:24:09 --> 01:24:11
			you don't need to know control it's not
		
01:24:11 --> 01:24:12
			it's not controlled by someone. It's decentralized.
		
01:24:13 --> 01:24:16
			Decentralized means it's not controlled by anyone, specifically.
		
01:24:17 --> 01:24:19
			Number 6, it has no tangible reality.
		
01:24:20 --> 01:24:21
			We talked about that.
		
01:24:21 --> 01:24:23
			And number 7, they say most countries don't
		
01:24:23 --> 01:24:25
			accept it. So if they don't accept it
		
01:24:25 --> 01:24:26
			and it's not recognized,
		
01:24:27 --> 01:24:29
			then we should say it's prohibited. But then
		
01:24:29 --> 01:24:31
			of course, what happens when it does become
		
01:24:31 --> 01:24:33
			recognized? So then there's a fatwa change. So
		
01:24:33 --> 01:24:35
			these are some of the,
		
01:24:35 --> 01:24:36
			elements
		
01:24:36 --> 01:24:38
			that that people have said, for this reason,
		
01:24:38 --> 01:24:39
			it may be forbidden.
		
01:24:40 --> 01:24:42
			Now this is talking about
		
01:24:43 --> 01:24:44
			the concept of cryptocurrency
		
01:24:46 --> 01:24:47
			using cryptocurrency.
		
01:24:47 --> 01:24:50
			Now the idea, like I mentioned before, people
		
01:24:50 --> 01:24:52
			have different reasons why they ask. So when
		
01:24:52 --> 01:24:54
			we're talking about the selling or the purchasing
		
01:24:54 --> 01:24:55
			or the trading
		
01:24:56 --> 01:24:57
			or the mining of cryptocurrency,
		
01:24:59 --> 01:25:01
			It may be permissible, it may be impermissible
		
01:25:01 --> 01:25:04
			depending on all the Islamic laws that exist
		
01:25:04 --> 01:25:06
			on currency speculation,
		
01:25:07 --> 01:25:10
			and things like that. Okay. So basic
		
01:25:10 --> 01:25:14
			principle on currency speculation and trading in currencies,
		
01:25:14 --> 01:25:16
			This is from forex's website.
		
01:25:17 --> 01:25:18
			They basically they say
		
01:25:19 --> 01:25:19
			that,
		
01:25:20 --> 01:25:21
			currency exchange
		
01:25:22 --> 01:25:23
			currency exchange
		
01:25:23 --> 01:25:26
			is permissible in Islam as long as there's
		
01:25:26 --> 01:25:29
			no interest element involved in it, number 1.
		
01:25:29 --> 01:25:31
			Number 2, it's made hand to hand or
		
01:25:31 --> 01:25:32
			spot,
		
01:25:32 --> 01:25:35
			and there's ways to translate that depending on
		
01:25:35 --> 01:25:37
			Islamic forex exchanges.
		
01:25:37 --> 01:25:39
			And number 3, that the exchanger
		
01:25:40 --> 01:25:41
			has a valid reason
		
01:25:42 --> 01:25:44
			to anticipate a probable profit
		
01:25:45 --> 01:25:46
			based upon an analysis
		
01:25:47 --> 01:25:50
			that does not rely upon the psychology of
		
01:25:50 --> 01:25:51
			gambling.
		
01:25:51 --> 01:25:54
			K. So what does that mean exactly? That
		
01:25:54 --> 01:25:55
			means that a lot of people, they're speculating
		
01:25:56 --> 01:25:57
			on the market and they're trading currencies,
		
01:25:58 --> 01:26:00
			and it's akin to gambling.
		
01:26:00 --> 01:26:02
			Because they're trying to make a quick buck
		
01:26:02 --> 01:26:03
			and trying to buy right now, and they're
		
01:26:03 --> 01:26:04
			gonna try to sell when it goes up
		
01:26:04 --> 01:26:05
			a little bit.
		
01:26:05 --> 01:26:07
			I I didn't say it's gambling, I said
		
01:26:07 --> 01:26:10
			it's akin to gambling. It's like gambling. So
		
01:26:10 --> 01:26:12
			what ends up happening is the idea that
		
01:26:12 --> 01:26:15
			Ibn Rushd mentioned about 2 things can cause
		
01:26:15 --> 01:26:17
			or 4 things he mentioned, but 2 main
		
01:26:17 --> 01:26:19
			things. Riba and ghhar are intrinsic
		
01:26:20 --> 01:26:22
			to a transaction which can cause it to
		
01:26:22 --> 01:26:23
			be prohibited in Islamic law.
		
01:26:24 --> 01:26:25
			Ghhar means uncertainty.
		
01:26:26 --> 01:26:28
			Part of uncertainty, and there's a whole chapter
		
01:26:28 --> 01:26:29
			on it, part of the uncertainty
		
01:26:30 --> 01:26:30
			is
		
01:26:31 --> 01:26:33
			involving in a certain type of speculation
		
01:26:35 --> 01:26:37
			that relies on the psychology this is the
		
01:26:37 --> 01:26:39
			good phrasing because it's broad, relies on the
		
01:26:39 --> 01:26:41
			psychology of gambling
		
01:26:41 --> 01:26:42
			which would cause it to be prohibited.
		
01:26:43 --> 01:26:45
			A lot of that depends on the amount
		
01:26:45 --> 01:26:47
			of information the person has, the intention that
		
01:26:47 --> 01:26:49
			the person has, how long they plan on
		
01:26:49 --> 01:26:51
			keeping it, what they plan on doing with
		
01:26:51 --> 01:26:53
			with it, and all of that stuff. So
		
01:26:53 --> 01:26:54
			this is kind of
		
01:26:57 --> 01:26:59
			a vague answer, but it gives you the
		
01:26:59 --> 01:27:02
			overall principle of how it gets processed. And
		
01:27:02 --> 01:27:05
			then a more clear specific answer really depends
		
01:27:05 --> 01:27:05
			on
		
01:27:05 --> 01:27:08
			circumstances, it depends on the volatility, it depends
		
01:27:08 --> 01:27:11
			on other things. K. So my personal recommendation,
		
01:27:11 --> 01:27:13
			I mean I'm not here to give economic
		
01:27:13 --> 01:27:14
			advice, just so you know. But,
		
01:27:16 --> 01:27:18
			if you're using it as a store of
		
01:27:18 --> 01:27:20
			value, and you're gonna put your life savings
		
01:27:20 --> 01:27:22
			into it, I would be very careful
		
01:27:23 --> 01:27:24
			Cause it's not a very good store of
		
01:27:24 --> 01:27:26
			value right now because of the volatility, but
		
01:27:26 --> 01:27:29
			it's an amazing medium of exchange. And if
		
01:27:29 --> 01:27:30
			it's considered to be halal and there's no
		
01:27:30 --> 01:27:31
			prohibited elements
		
01:27:32 --> 01:27:33
			as a medium of exchange,
		
01:27:34 --> 01:27:37
			then that this is an emerging technology. There's
		
01:27:37 --> 01:27:39
			a few more arguments, by the way. It
		
01:27:39 --> 01:27:41
			uses a massive amount of electricity,
		
01:27:42 --> 01:27:43
			to be able to process all of these
		
01:27:43 --> 01:27:46
			transactions. So another argument has been made, there's
		
01:27:46 --> 01:27:47
			absolute waste of electricity.
		
01:27:48 --> 01:27:50
			The amount of electricity that it takes to
		
01:27:50 --> 01:27:51
			process,
		
01:27:51 --> 01:27:52
			bitcoins
		
01:27:52 --> 01:27:56
			is like the entire country of Pakistan uses
		
01:27:56 --> 01:27:59
			or the entire country of Ireland. That's a
		
01:27:59 --> 01:28:01
			lot of electricity. Right? The amount of kilowatts
		
01:28:01 --> 01:28:04
			that it uses per, you know, per bitcoin.
		
01:28:04 --> 01:28:05
			The thing though is,
		
01:28:06 --> 01:28:07
			you know, bitcoin might go away like I
		
01:28:07 --> 01:28:09
			said. The idea of cryptocurrency
		
01:28:10 --> 01:28:12
			is being built upon, is being developed.
		
01:28:12 --> 01:28:15
			Satoshi was the first one to come up
		
01:28:15 --> 01:28:16
			with a solution
		
01:28:16 --> 01:28:18
			to the double spending problem. But there are
		
01:28:18 --> 01:28:20
			other people who are gonna develop more efficient
		
01:28:20 --> 01:28:21
			methods
		
01:28:21 --> 01:28:24
			to, you know, result in a similar type
		
01:28:24 --> 01:28:26
			of, you know, benefit of of having, you
		
01:28:26 --> 01:28:27
			know, deregulated,
		
01:28:28 --> 01:28:28
			decentralized
		
01:28:29 --> 01:28:29
			currency.
		
01:28:30 --> 01:28:30
			So
		
01:28:31 --> 01:28:32
			from that perspective,
		
01:28:33 --> 01:28:35
			we shouldn't just shut the door quickly, and
		
01:28:35 --> 01:28:37
			we should see what other type of things
		
01:28:37 --> 01:28:37
			are developing.
		
01:28:39 --> 01:28:42
			The last thing I'll say is that, when
		
01:28:42 --> 01:28:43
			the Internet was first developed,
		
01:28:44 --> 01:28:45
			right, it
		
01:28:45 --> 01:28:48
			was just designed to share documents with people.
		
01:28:48 --> 01:28:51
			And look what the internet became now.
		
01:28:51 --> 01:28:54
			People are always very cautious
		
01:28:54 --> 01:28:56
			and very careful when there's a new technology,
		
01:28:56 --> 01:28:58
			and it can be very scary.
		
01:28:58 --> 01:29:01
			It has potential to do bad, and it
		
01:29:01 --> 01:29:03
			has a potential to do good. So I
		
01:29:03 --> 01:29:04
			think we as Muslims,
		
01:29:05 --> 01:29:06
			we should,
		
01:29:07 --> 01:29:10
			we should be cautious, we should tread cautiously,
		
01:29:10 --> 01:29:13
			but we should never close the door before
		
01:29:13 --> 01:29:13
			we understand
		
01:29:14 --> 01:29:17
			the real pros and cons of things
		
01:29:17 --> 01:29:18
			because
		
01:29:18 --> 01:29:21
			we might just This may be the thing
		
01:29:21 --> 01:29:24
			that Muslims have actually been looking for because
		
01:29:24 --> 01:29:24
			we know
		
01:29:25 --> 01:29:25
			that
		
01:29:26 --> 01:29:26
			our
		
01:29:27 --> 01:29:30
			economy is primarily based on interest, the entire
		
01:29:30 --> 01:29:32
			world economy is based on interest. And we're
		
01:29:32 --> 01:29:34
			pretty much one of the few religions left
		
01:29:34 --> 01:29:36
			in the entire world or people left in
		
01:29:36 --> 01:29:38
			the entire world who still say that, yeah
		
01:29:38 --> 01:29:39
			we shouldn't
		
01:29:40 --> 01:29:43
			be taking interest or paying interest. And our
		
01:29:43 --> 01:29:45
			money devalues, and in order to you know,
		
01:29:46 --> 01:29:47
			be able to have some stable currency,
		
01:29:48 --> 01:29:50
			we need some type of alternative in the
		
01:29:50 --> 01:29:51
			system somehow.
		
01:29:51 --> 01:29:52
			This may be
		
01:29:53 --> 01:29:55
			that alternative to the system we're looking for,
		
01:29:55 --> 01:29:57
			or it may not be. We don't know.
		
01:29:57 --> 01:29:59
			We should be careful before we close the
		
01:29:59 --> 01:29:59
			door,
		
01:29:59 --> 01:30:01
			and people should just be cautious about it,
		
01:30:01 --> 01:30:02
			inshallah.
		
01:30:02 --> 01:30:04
			So this is all I had to say
		
01:30:04 --> 01:30:06
			about that, inshallah. Any questions?
		
01:30:07 --> 01:30:07
			Yes,
		
01:30:14 --> 01:30:14
			sister.
		
01:30:31 --> 01:30:32
			Yeah.
		
01:30:37 --> 01:30:39
			Yeah. You're right. The so the criminal world
		
01:30:39 --> 01:30:42
			is going to use this technology, and they're
		
01:30:42 --> 01:30:43
			gonna use all other technologies
		
01:30:44 --> 01:30:45
			to do the bad things that they wanna
		
01:30:45 --> 01:30:46
			do. Right.
		
01:31:14 --> 01:31:16
			So let me let me respond to that
		
01:31:16 --> 01:31:18
			by saying there are Muslims who are actually
		
01:31:18 --> 01:31:20
			trying to do exactly what you're saying
		
01:31:21 --> 01:31:23
			through blockchain technology. So what they're trying to
		
01:31:23 --> 01:31:24
			do is they're trying to go back to
		
01:31:24 --> 01:31:25
			the gold standard
		
01:31:26 --> 01:31:27
			by using a cryptocurrency
		
01:31:28 --> 01:31:29
			that is actually
		
01:31:29 --> 01:31:32
			asset backed by gold even. So there's so
		
01:31:32 --> 01:31:34
			many things that are developing now in this
		
01:31:34 --> 01:31:37
			field that we shouldn't I think we shouldn't,
		
01:31:39 --> 01:31:40
			close our, our
		
01:31:42 --> 01:31:42
			idea
		
01:31:43 --> 01:31:45
			to what we're trying to achieve. So if
		
01:31:45 --> 01:31:46
			you're saying we need to go back to
		
01:31:46 --> 01:31:47
			the gold standard,
		
01:31:48 --> 01:31:51
			this could potential the technology itself, not bitcoin,
		
01:31:51 --> 01:31:54
			the technology itself could potentially be a means
		
01:31:55 --> 01:31:57
			to actually get people back to a more
		
01:31:57 --> 01:31:59
			stable type of currency like the gold standard
		
01:31:59 --> 01:32:01
			if that's what we're looking for. Just keep
		
01:32:01 --> 01:32:02
			that in mind.
		
01:32:05 --> 01:32:06
			Yes.
		
01:32:19 --> 01:32:20
			So the thing is when it comes to
		
01:32:20 --> 01:32:23
			stocks, if the stock is represented by something
		
01:32:23 --> 01:32:25
			that's considered to be an asset, there's a
		
01:32:25 --> 01:32:27
			difference between something that's considered to be a
		
01:32:27 --> 01:32:30
			currency in Islamic law. Right? And the reason
		
01:32:30 --> 01:32:32
			is the rules of riba apply and other
		
01:32:32 --> 01:32:34
			rules apply to it because they're viewed as
		
01:32:34 --> 01:32:37
			different things. Now, when we're viewing something in
		
01:32:37 --> 01:32:40
			sharia in Islamic law, we have to go
		
01:32:40 --> 01:32:42
			back to not only the way that they're
		
01:32:42 --> 01:32:45
			written, but their actual function. So if something
		
01:32:45 --> 01:32:47
			is viewed, it's called a commodity, but it
		
01:32:47 --> 01:32:49
			functions like a currency, we should be viewing
		
01:32:49 --> 01:32:50
			it as a currency
		
01:32:51 --> 01:32:52
			and vice versa.
		
01:33:04 --> 01:33:06
			Are you talking about for that specific instance?
		
01:33:07 --> 01:33:08
			Is yeah.
		
01:33:09 --> 01:33:10
			So I have not looked into those, so
		
01:33:10 --> 01:33:12
			I can't give you an answer.
		
01:33:13 --> 01:33:13
			Yes.
		
01:33:30 --> 01:33:31
			So so let me clarify. So I'm not
		
01:33:31 --> 01:33:33
			saying that it turns into
		
01:33:33 --> 01:33:36
			a gambling habit when you're trading cryptocurrency.
		
01:33:36 --> 01:33:38
			What I'm saying is, it's it's not that
		
01:33:38 --> 01:33:40
			it becomes a habit.
		
01:33:40 --> 01:33:41
			It's the
		
01:33:42 --> 01:33:44
			when I said the mental so when it
		
01:33:44 --> 01:33:45
			when it when it meant when I said
		
01:33:45 --> 01:33:47
			the mentality of gambling, it's not talking about
		
01:33:47 --> 01:33:48
			the addiction of gambling.
		
01:33:49 --> 01:33:51
			It's talking about the uncertainty
		
01:33:51 --> 01:33:52
			of making a decision
		
01:33:54 --> 01:33:56
			on a specific transaction, even if it's only
		
01:33:56 --> 01:33:57
			1 transaction. I just wanted to clarify that.
		
01:33:58 --> 01:33:59
			So sorry. Go ahead. Continue.
		
01:34:03 --> 01:34:05
			Right. So it when it comes to the
		
01:34:05 --> 01:34:07
			stock market, again, it comes to the it
		
01:34:07 --> 01:34:10
			comes down to the function of how a
		
01:34:10 --> 01:34:11
			stock is viewed versus how a currency is
		
01:34:11 --> 01:34:13
			viewed In terms of what what it is
		
01:34:13 --> 01:34:16
			and what its function actually is. There's a
		
01:34:16 --> 01:34:18
			difference between what's viewed to be a commodity
		
01:34:18 --> 01:34:21
			or a percentage share of ownership in a
		
01:34:21 --> 01:34:23
			company, which has a certain type of value,
		
01:34:23 --> 01:34:24
			versus a currency,
		
01:34:25 --> 01:34:27
			which doesn't actually have an actual intrinsic value
		
01:34:27 --> 01:34:29
			that's tied back to a commodity.
		
01:34:55 --> 01:34:57
			So let me clarify that. So,
		
01:35:00 --> 01:35:02
			trading currency with the intention of making a
		
01:35:02 --> 01:35:02
			profit
		
01:35:03 --> 01:35:04
			becomes a gray area.
		
01:35:04 --> 01:35:05
			It's a gray area.
		
01:35:06 --> 01:35:08
			Now from that gray area,
		
01:35:09 --> 01:35:11
			there's a lot of, you know, discussion amongst
		
01:35:11 --> 01:35:13
			scholars in terms of what causes it to
		
01:35:13 --> 01:35:15
			become okay and what causes it to not
		
01:35:15 --> 01:35:17
			be okay. Right? So,
		
01:35:17 --> 01:35:19
			you know, I unfortunately, I can't go into
		
01:35:19 --> 01:35:20
			the details of all of that because a
		
01:35:20 --> 01:35:22
			lot of different opinions, It's a very long
		
01:35:22 --> 01:35:24
			thing. But the the summary of all of
		
01:35:24 --> 01:35:27
			that is, it depends on
		
01:35:27 --> 01:35:28
			the
		
01:35:28 --> 01:35:32
			type and the amount of information that you
		
01:35:32 --> 01:35:32
			have,
		
01:35:33 --> 01:35:34
			that you're using
		
01:35:34 --> 01:35:37
			in order to make a decision on why
		
01:35:37 --> 01:35:38
			you're buying this currency,
		
01:35:38 --> 01:35:40
			combined with partly your intention of why you're
		
01:35:40 --> 01:35:42
			doing it in terms of you planning to
		
01:35:42 --> 01:35:44
			just sell because you're hoping that it reaches
		
01:35:44 --> 01:35:46
			certain value and then you sell.
		
01:35:46 --> 01:35:48
			These two things will determine whether
		
01:35:49 --> 01:35:51
			you move from the gray area to the
		
01:35:51 --> 01:35:52
			halal or to the haram.
		
01:35:53 --> 01:35:54
			I hope that just narrows it down. I
		
01:35:54 --> 01:35:56
			can't give you a clear cut answer, but
		
01:35:56 --> 01:35:58
			that just narrows it down for you.
		
01:35:58 --> 01:35:59
			Yeah. Yes.
		
01:36:15 --> 01:36:16
			That's
		
01:36:16 --> 01:36:17
			okay.
		
01:36:17 --> 01:36:19
			Let me repeat the question for the camera.
		
01:36:19 --> 01:36:20
			So among
		
01:36:21 --> 01:36:24
			the principles, among the cons of cryptocurrency
		
01:36:25 --> 01:36:27
			that we mentioned, which one of them are
		
01:36:27 --> 01:36:30
			fundamental to the cryptocurrency that cannot be removed?
		
01:37:02 --> 01:37:03
			I see. I see. Okay.
		
01:37:14 --> 01:37:16
			There is. There is. There are some. So
		
01:37:16 --> 01:37:18
			for example, the the risk of harm.
		
01:37:18 --> 01:37:20
			The risk of harm that they come up
		
01:37:20 --> 01:37:22
			with about, for example, money laundering and funding
		
01:37:22 --> 01:37:24
			terrorism and things like that,
		
01:37:25 --> 01:37:28
			risk of fraud, those things cannot be resolved.
		
01:37:29 --> 01:37:31
			They cannot be resolved for any currency, because
		
01:37:31 --> 01:37:34
			that risk is always gonna be there. Right?
		
01:37:34 --> 01:37:36
			Even if you regulate Bitcoin
		
01:37:37 --> 01:37:38
			exchanges in countries,
		
01:37:39 --> 01:37:42
			the vast or or cryptocurrency exchanges in a
		
01:37:42 --> 01:37:44
			country, which I think there should be some
		
01:37:44 --> 01:37:45
			amount of regulation,
		
01:37:48 --> 01:37:50
			most people are gonna use
		
01:37:50 --> 01:37:52
			cryptocurrency exchanges
		
01:37:53 --> 01:37:54
			because of convenience.
		
01:37:55 --> 01:37:56
			But you don't have to use cryptocurrency
		
01:37:57 --> 01:37:57
			exchange.
		
01:37:58 --> 01:38:00
			So in the criminal world,
		
01:38:00 --> 01:38:02
			they can still get cryptocurrency
		
01:38:03 --> 01:38:06
			without going through an exchange that exists in
		
01:38:06 --> 01:38:07
			their own country,
		
01:38:08 --> 01:38:10
			and therefore they'll continue to transact with it.
		
01:38:10 --> 01:38:12
			That is intrinsic to cryptocurrency
		
01:38:13 --> 01:38:14
			technology,
		
01:38:14 --> 01:38:16
			which cannot be removed from it. So that's
		
01:38:16 --> 01:38:18
			one example of it.
		
01:38:18 --> 01:38:20
			They can make it more difficult and just
		
01:38:20 --> 01:38:21
			make it more of an inconvenience
		
01:38:22 --> 01:38:23
			for people to go around there and get
		
01:38:23 --> 01:38:25
			their own thing. But you can just you
		
01:38:25 --> 01:38:27
			can go on their website. You can establish
		
01:38:27 --> 01:38:29
			your own, you know, bitcoin wallet.
		
01:38:29 --> 01:38:31
			The the question is, how are you gonna
		
01:38:31 --> 01:38:32
			convert your dollars
		
01:38:32 --> 01:38:33
			into cryptocurrency?
		
01:38:34 --> 01:38:34
			Right?
		
01:38:35 --> 01:38:37
			If you wanted to, let's assume, you know,
		
01:38:37 --> 01:38:38
			you were a criminal. This is not
		
01:38:39 --> 01:38:41
			like a wikiHow explanation of how to be
		
01:38:41 --> 01:38:42
			a criminal, but I'm just explaining to you
		
01:38:42 --> 01:38:44
			how it would work. If you wanted to
		
01:38:44 --> 01:38:46
			be a criminal, which you should not be,
		
01:38:46 --> 01:38:47
			what you do is you just go on
		
01:38:47 --> 01:38:51
			online, you'd establish your own bitcoin wallet without
		
01:38:51 --> 01:38:52
			going through an exchange.
		
01:38:53 --> 01:38:54
			You have your own, you know, you have
		
01:38:54 --> 01:38:55
			your own, you know,
		
01:38:56 --> 01:38:58
			place where people can send you money, and
		
01:38:58 --> 01:39:00
			you find someone on the street or you
		
01:39:00 --> 01:39:01
			find somewhere in a random part of the
		
01:39:01 --> 01:39:04
			world who is willing to trade your cash
		
01:39:04 --> 01:39:05
			on the street
		
01:39:06 --> 01:39:08
			to transfer bitcoin over to you on the
		
01:39:08 --> 01:39:10
			spot, and now you got bitcoin or you
		
01:39:10 --> 01:39:12
			got cryptocurrency in your wallet, and you could
		
01:39:12 --> 01:39:14
			do whatever you want with it. It's inconvenient,
		
01:39:15 --> 01:39:16
			very inconvenient,
		
01:39:17 --> 01:39:19
			but it can be done. Right? So that's
		
01:39:19 --> 01:39:21
			not that's in a way that reduces it,
		
01:39:21 --> 01:39:23
			because the more inconvenient you make it to
		
01:39:23 --> 01:39:24
			go around exchanges,
		
01:39:26 --> 01:39:28
			the more protection you have. But then the
		
01:39:28 --> 01:39:30
			problem is, if you over regulate
		
01:39:31 --> 01:39:33
			Bitcoin or cryptocurrency
		
01:39:33 --> 01:39:35
			exchanges in your country,
		
01:39:36 --> 01:39:39
			you've just removed the whole, you know, purpose
		
01:39:39 --> 01:39:40
			of
		
01:39:40 --> 01:39:43
			deregulation and removing the 3rd party. You just
		
01:39:43 --> 01:39:44
			threw the 3rd party back in and you
		
01:39:44 --> 01:39:47
			over regulated the 3rd party. So it removes
		
01:39:47 --> 01:39:49
			the benefits. So the more regulation you have,
		
01:39:50 --> 01:39:52
			the more of the benefits you're gonna lose.
		
01:39:52 --> 01:39:54
			But then at the same time,
		
01:39:54 --> 01:39:56
			people still use,
		
01:39:56 --> 01:39:59
			you know, bitcoin exchanges and cryptocurrency exchanges
		
01:40:00 --> 01:40:02
			because it's convenient. Because you wanna just do
		
01:40:02 --> 01:40:03
			a quick transfer and you want someone to
		
01:40:03 --> 01:40:05
			store it for you and all of that.
		
01:40:15 --> 01:40:17
			That's that's pretty much what it seems, but
		
01:40:17 --> 01:40:19
			then all the other arguments about electricity
		
01:40:19 --> 01:40:21
			and things like that.
		
01:40:23 --> 01:40:23
			Things
		
01:40:24 --> 01:40:26
			that are going to be resolved or actually
		
01:40:26 --> 01:40:28
			can't. Like yeah. Things that can be resolved.
		
01:40:28 --> 01:40:31
			Yes. Exactly. Yeah. You're right. Pretty much. Cover
		
01:40:31 --> 01:40:31
			virus.
		
01:40:32 --> 01:40:32
			Yeah.
		
01:40:45 --> 01:40:46
			In which aspect?
		
01:40:49 --> 01:40:51
			You're talking about volatility of the price.
		
01:40:52 --> 01:40:54
			You're talking about price volatility. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
		
01:40:54 --> 01:40:56
			So a lot of scholars have said the
		
01:40:56 --> 01:40:58
			price volatility. Now if the price stabilizes,
		
01:40:59 --> 01:41:01
			right, which it could eventually,
		
01:41:01 --> 01:41:02
			right, then it'll
		
01:41:03 --> 01:41:03
			the volatility
		
01:41:04 --> 01:41:07
			of cryptocurrency is not intrinsic to the currency.
		
01:41:07 --> 01:41:10
			It's because people are speculating on it. So
		
01:41:10 --> 01:41:12
			you can potentially make another type of cryptocurrency,
		
01:41:12 --> 01:41:14
			which one of one of our friends, we
		
01:41:14 --> 01:41:16
			were talking about. If you if you tie
		
01:41:16 --> 01:41:16
			it to something
		
01:41:17 --> 01:41:19
			or you you tie it to something that
		
01:41:19 --> 01:41:21
			will be more stable,
		
01:41:21 --> 01:41:22
			then you're not gonna have the same amount
		
01:41:22 --> 01:41:24
			of volatility. And there's a lot of Muslims
		
01:41:24 --> 01:41:27
			actually right now, Muslim organizations that are working
		
01:41:27 --> 01:41:27
			on something like this, that are
		
01:41:27 --> 01:41:29
			trying to tie it to either some commodity
		
01:41:29 --> 01:41:30
			or tie it to gold or have a
		
01:41:30 --> 01:41:31
			minimum value to it, which is gonna prevent
		
01:41:31 --> 01:41:32
			the amount of volatility that it could potentially
		
01:41:32 --> 01:41:35
			have. So what can happen what I'm trying
		
01:41:35 --> 01:41:36
			to say is,
		
01:41:40 --> 01:41:41
			this kind of in line with his question
		
01:41:41 --> 01:41:42
			is,
		
01:41:42 --> 01:41:44
			volatility is not intrinsic
		
01:41:44 --> 01:41:45
			to cryptocurrency
		
01:41:46 --> 01:41:46
			per se.
		
01:41:47 --> 01:41:48
			It can be reduced
		
01:41:49 --> 01:41:50
			or it can be
		
01:41:51 --> 01:41:52
			I don't know. Maybe not eliminated, but it
		
01:41:52 --> 01:41:55
			can be reduced to a significant thing, and
		
01:41:55 --> 01:41:56
			it's gonna have to do with the trend.
		
01:41:56 --> 01:41:57
			It has to do with the fact that
		
01:41:57 --> 01:41:58
			it's new and all.
		
01:42:00 --> 01:42:02
			No. No. No. No. You don't need government
		
01:42:02 --> 01:42:04
			control to be able to reduce the volatility
		
01:42:04 --> 01:42:05
			of another cryptocurrency.
		
01:42:06 --> 01:42:08
			That's not necessary per se.
		
01:42:08 --> 01:42:09
			Yeah. Yes.
		
01:42:17 --> 01:42:17
			For zakah?
		
01:42:18 --> 01:42:20
			Zakatul mal in cryptocurrency?
		
01:42:25 --> 01:42:27
			It's too difficult to cash out the amount
		
01:42:27 --> 01:42:28
			in terms back into dollars.
		
01:42:29 --> 01:42:30
			Like I said, a lot of poor people
		
01:42:30 --> 01:42:33
			use, Bitcoin. So you could just give them
		
01:42:33 --> 01:42:33
			Bitcoin.
		
01:42:34 --> 01:42:36
			Azure is like, yeah. They can go buy
		
01:42:36 --> 01:42:37
			a meal from it.
		
01:42:38 --> 01:42:39
			How you find a poor person?
		
01:42:42 --> 01:42:44
			Who has who has a who has a
		
01:42:44 --> 01:42:45
			Bitcoin wallet?
		
01:42:45 --> 01:42:47
			What we'll do, you go to Uplift Charity,
		
01:42:47 --> 01:42:49
			and what they'll do is they'll establish a
		
01:42:49 --> 01:42:51
			Bitcoin wallet for the people on their list,
		
01:42:51 --> 01:42:52
			they'll transfer Bitcoin over to them.
		
01:42:53 --> 01:42:54
			Why
		
01:42:54 --> 01:42:55
			not?
		
01:42:57 --> 01:42:58
			Via Bitcoin?
		
01:42:59 --> 01:43:02
			If there's a masjid that does accept Bitcoin,
		
01:43:02 --> 01:43:04
			yeah. You can give it to either a
		
01:43:04 --> 01:43:06
			relief organization or give it to a masjid
		
01:43:06 --> 01:43:07
			that it does accept Bitcoin.
		
01:43:09 --> 01:43:11
			IOC doesn't. Our university did at one point
		
01:43:11 --> 01:43:13
			in time. We were accepting bitcoin for our
		
01:43:13 --> 01:43:15
			enrollments. If you ever wanna register, you can
		
01:43:15 --> 01:43:17
			pay us through bitcoin, you know. So
		
01:43:17 --> 01:43:18
			but,
		
01:43:19 --> 01:43:21
			we currently don't, but there might be. And
		
01:43:21 --> 01:43:23
			if you maybe if you go to, Uplift
		
01:43:23 --> 01:43:25
			Charity or Islamic Relief and say, hey. Can
		
01:43:25 --> 01:43:27
			you guys set up a quick Bitcoin transfer?
		
01:43:28 --> 01:43:29
			It's not a difficult thing to do. I
		
01:43:29 --> 01:43:31
			mean, I set it up on our website
		
01:43:31 --> 01:43:32
			in 10 minutes.
		
01:43:39 --> 01:43:40
			Yeah. Yeah. That
		
01:43:40 --> 01:43:42
			yeah. That matters too. Yeah.
		
01:44:02 --> 01:44:04
			Okay. So good question. So question is,
		
01:44:05 --> 01:44:07
			you're asking if that's what happens?
		
01:44:12 --> 01:44:14
			So so the the so this is the
		
01:44:14 --> 01:44:16
			thing. So you're right. In a sense, when
		
01:44:16 --> 01:44:18
			you convert, there's a third party involved in
		
01:44:18 --> 01:44:18
			the conversion.
		
01:44:19 --> 01:44:20
			Right? But
		
01:44:20 --> 01:44:22
			but the transfer itself doesn't have a third
		
01:44:22 --> 01:44:25
			party. So so the the question is
		
01:44:25 --> 01:44:26
			is
		
01:44:26 --> 01:44:27
			once you've converted
		
01:44:28 --> 01:44:29
			into the cryptocurrency,
		
01:44:30 --> 01:44:32
			now you've eliminated third party.
		
01:44:35 --> 01:44:36
			Who who do you give that money to,
		
01:44:36 --> 01:44:39
			the cryptocurrency to? To anyone who's willing to
		
01:44:39 --> 01:44:40
			accept the cryptocurrency.
		
01:44:42 --> 01:44:43
			Yeah.
		
01:44:49 --> 01:44:52
			You okay. Let me give you an example,
		
01:44:52 --> 01:44:54
			a very primitive example. Let's say you met
		
01:44:54 --> 01:44:57
			Satoshi Nakamoto. Okay? You met him on the
		
01:44:57 --> 01:44:59
			street. And you say, look, Satoshi, I know
		
01:44:59 --> 01:45:00
			you got a bunch of bitcoins because you
		
01:45:00 --> 01:45:03
			started this entire thing. Right? I have a
		
01:45:03 --> 01:45:03
			$100.
		
01:45:04 --> 01:45:06
			I'm gonna give you this $100. You transfer
		
01:45:06 --> 01:45:09
			into my bitcoin wallet some bitcoin worth a
		
01:45:09 --> 01:45:12
			$100 from you. You take that bitcoin wallet
		
01:45:12 --> 01:45:14
			that you have, and you have family back
		
01:45:14 --> 01:45:15
			home. You tell them to open up a
		
01:45:15 --> 01:45:18
			bitcoin wallet for themself, which costs nothing, and
		
01:45:18 --> 01:45:20
			you send them bitcoin. They're gonna go let's
		
01:45:20 --> 01:45:22
			assume your family lives in Zimbabwe.
		
01:45:22 --> 01:45:24
			They're gonna go to the store,
		
01:45:24 --> 01:45:27
			and everyone in Zimbabwe is skeptical for example,
		
01:45:27 --> 01:45:29
			because what happened recently in their government. And
		
01:45:29 --> 01:45:31
			you go, hey man, I wanna buy that
		
01:45:31 --> 01:45:32
			apple from you. You know? You say, hey
		
01:45:32 --> 01:45:34
			do you accept bitcoin? He says, of course
		
01:45:34 --> 01:45:36
			I do. Better than the $200,000,000,000,000,
		
01:45:37 --> 01:45:39
			Zimbabwe dollars that we had. And he'll go
		
01:45:39 --> 01:45:41
			ahead and accept it from you, and you
		
01:45:41 --> 01:45:42
			never need to convert it back to any
		
01:45:42 --> 01:45:43
			type of local currency.
		
01:45:45 --> 01:45:47
			So the only 3rd there's no third party
		
01:45:48 --> 01:45:50
			because you met Satoshi on the street.
		
01:45:51 --> 01:45:51
			The
		
01:45:52 --> 01:45:52
			what?
		
01:45:54 --> 01:45:56
			Yeah. Satoshi got the $100. Yeah.
		
01:45:57 --> 01:45:59
			How did he get it? You give him
		
01:45:59 --> 01:46:00
			the yeah. You give him the money.
		
01:46:01 --> 01:46:02
			You hand it to him.
		
01:46:05 --> 01:46:07
			He's not a 3rd party. He's second party.
		
01:46:07 --> 01:46:10
			There's no third party overseeing your transaction. That's
		
01:46:10 --> 01:46:12
			what the third party means. Right?
		
01:46:15 --> 01:46:17
			No. No. I agree. So Satoshi, if he
		
01:46:17 --> 01:46:19
			was smart, if he really believed in his
		
01:46:19 --> 01:46:21
			own system, maybe maybe he wouldn't want your
		
01:46:21 --> 01:46:22
			money. You know?
		
01:46:26 --> 01:46:27
			Right.
		
01:46:28 --> 01:46:29
			What that's
		
01:46:29 --> 01:46:31
			no. That's a question. So
		
01:46:32 --> 01:46:33
			what you what you what you're saying is
		
01:46:33 --> 01:46:34
			basically
		
01:46:34 --> 01:46:37
			the cryptocurrency is not gonna displace
		
01:46:38 --> 01:46:41
			the currency that you you you the currency,
		
01:46:41 --> 01:46:43
			fiat currency that you live in. Like, it's
		
01:46:43 --> 01:46:45
			not gonna replace the American dollar. Right? Even
		
01:46:45 --> 01:46:47
			though I have a quote from Ron Paul
		
01:46:47 --> 01:46:49
			here, by the way. This is pretty interesting.
		
01:46:50 --> 01:46:52
			Ron Paul anyone know who Ron Paul is?
		
01:46:53 --> 01:46:56
			Okay. Yeah. Former congressman Ron Paul. He said,
		
01:46:58 --> 01:46:59
			where'd it go?
		
01:47:04 --> 01:47:06
			Alright. Lost his quote. Anyways, he says that
		
01:47:08 --> 01:47:10
			Bitcoin is gonna, like, destroy the American dollar
		
01:47:10 --> 01:47:12
			or something like that. That's not likely gonna
		
01:47:12 --> 01:47:14
			happen in the near future.
		
01:47:14 --> 01:47:16
			Right? Most people say it's not likely gonna
		
01:47:16 --> 01:47:20
			happen, but this becomes an alternative currency that's
		
01:47:20 --> 01:47:22
			used as an excellent medium of exchange. So,
		
01:47:24 --> 01:47:25
			yeah. It's not gonna solve all the problems.
		
01:47:25 --> 01:47:25
			It's not gonna remove the entire system of
		
01:47:25 --> 01:47:27
			dollar and, you know, banks and all of
		
01:47:27 --> 01:47:28
			that stuff. They're not gonna disappear because of
		
01:47:28 --> 01:47:30
			this technology right now. And if
		
01:47:30 --> 01:47:33
			they did, it would actually be a problem
		
01:47:33 --> 01:47:34
			because
		
01:47:36 --> 01:47:38
			we don't have enough electricity to to actually
		
01:47:39 --> 01:47:42
			process all of that Bitcoin transaction. Right?
		
01:47:42 --> 01:47:43
			So,
		
01:47:43 --> 01:47:45
			yeah. You're right in that sense, but it's
		
01:47:45 --> 01:47:47
			a step in the direction of where they're
		
01:47:47 --> 01:47:49
			trying to go. K? In the back.
		
01:48:07 --> 01:48:08
			Yep.
		
01:48:09 --> 01:48:09
			Yep.
		
01:48:23 --> 01:48:23
			Sure.
		
01:48:33 --> 01:48:33
			Right.
		
01:48:37 --> 01:48:37
			Right.
		
01:48:41 --> 01:48:43
			Right. Right. So the question is how prevalent,
		
01:48:44 --> 01:48:45
			has this become and how many people are
		
01:48:45 --> 01:48:47
			using it? So, I mean, you know, there
		
01:48:47 --> 01:48:50
			Microsoft is accepting bitcoin. There are subway locations
		
01:48:50 --> 01:48:52
			which accept bitcoin. You could buy a subway
		
01:48:52 --> 01:48:55
			sandwich there. You know, there are ATM machines
		
01:48:55 --> 01:48:56
			where you can just withdraw, you know, you
		
01:48:56 --> 01:48:58
			can actually get your bitcoin right there. So
		
01:48:58 --> 01:49:00
			it's becoming more and more prevalent as the
		
01:49:00 --> 01:49:02
			days go by. Every year, there's gonna be
		
01:49:02 --> 01:49:03
			more and more people who are gonna be
		
01:49:03 --> 01:49:05
			accepting bitcoin. So when you have major franchises
		
01:49:06 --> 01:49:08
			and major corporations even accepting it, I think
		
01:49:08 --> 01:49:10
			it's, it's only gonna be a few years
		
01:49:10 --> 01:49:12
			before it becomes very very common, to be
		
01:49:12 --> 01:49:12
			to be accepting that. Many websites now are
		
01:49:12 --> 01:49:13
			integrating all the different types of
		
01:49:14 --> 01:49:16
			integrating all the different type of cryptocurrency, which
		
01:49:16 --> 01:49:17
			unfortunately is always being exchanged back and forth,
		
01:49:17 --> 01:49:19
			but it's being accepted by, a lot of
		
01:49:19 --> 01:49:21
			mainstream companies in America and around the world.
		
01:49:21 --> 01:49:22
			K.
		
01:49:31 --> 01:49:32
			Sisters stopped.
		
01:49:32 --> 01:49:34
			They're done. Okay. I didn't look at the
		
01:49:34 --> 01:49:36
			sisters' side for a while. So anyone who
		
01:49:36 --> 01:49:38
			has not asked a question yet? Anyone who
		
01:49:38 --> 01:49:40
			has not asked a question yet? You've not
		
01:49:40 --> 01:49:40
			asked a question.
		
01:49:44 --> 01:49:46
			Who's paying for the electricity? The people who
		
01:49:46 --> 01:49:48
			are running the computers. Why do they pay
		
01:49:48 --> 01:49:51
			for the electricity? Because they get bitcoin by
		
01:49:51 --> 01:49:51
			mining.
		
01:49:52 --> 01:49:54
			It's called my like processing the bitcoins gives
		
01:49:54 --> 01:49:55
			them bitcoins
		
01:49:56 --> 01:49:57
			for now. That's
		
01:49:59 --> 01:50:01
			it can offset it can offset their cost
		
01:50:01 --> 01:50:02
			because of Bitcoin value.
		
01:50:05 --> 01:50:07
			The money so right now, Bitcoin is not
		
01:50:07 --> 01:50:09
			maxed out. So it's still being generated, meaning
		
01:50:09 --> 01:50:11
			that it's being mined. It's not reached the
		
01:50:11 --> 01:50:12
			maximum 21,000,000.
		
01:50:13 --> 01:50:16
			Is it that you value the transaction
		
01:50:17 --> 01:50:20
			more than offset the services? Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
		
01:50:20 --> 01:50:21
			It offsets it.
		
01:50:26 --> 01:50:27
			Nobody owns the system.
		
01:50:28 --> 01:50:30
			Nobody owns the system. Nobody owns the entire
		
01:50:30 --> 01:50:31
			system.
		
01:50:32 --> 01:50:33
			So you have a computer, you can set
		
01:50:33 --> 01:50:36
			up and start mining bitcoin on your home
		
01:50:36 --> 01:50:37
			computer if you wanted to.
		
01:50:38 --> 01:50:40
			You're not gonna have very good processing power
		
01:50:40 --> 01:50:42
			though, compared to people who have like an
		
01:50:42 --> 01:50:45
			entire, you know, center of computers chained up
		
01:50:45 --> 01:50:47
			and everything. And now they're putting it in
		
01:50:47 --> 01:50:48
			like cold places like, you know,
		
01:50:49 --> 01:50:52
			Iceland and stuff like that, it automatically cools
		
01:50:52 --> 01:50:54
			the system. Southern California is not the best
		
01:50:54 --> 01:50:56
			place to be generating a lot of heat
		
01:50:56 --> 01:50:58
			and electricity. It's not gonna help you very
		
01:50:58 --> 01:51:00
			much. But, you could do it. You could
		
01:51:00 --> 01:51:02
			participate. Like there was a program, you know,
		
01:51:02 --> 01:51:04
			when I was in college, there was a
		
01:51:04 --> 01:51:05
			program called SETI.
		
01:51:05 --> 01:51:07
			Anyone know this program? S e t I,
		
01:51:07 --> 01:51:08
			search for extraterrestrial
		
01:51:09 --> 01:51:11
			intelligence? Basically what we used to do when
		
01:51:11 --> 01:51:12
			we were in the dorm is we would
		
01:51:12 --> 01:51:14
			leave our computer on all night, and when
		
01:51:14 --> 01:51:15
			we go to class, and we leave our
		
01:51:15 --> 01:51:17
			computer on at night too,
		
01:51:17 --> 01:51:20
			you can sign up for your computer to
		
01:51:20 --> 01:51:23
			be used by a centralized program to use
		
01:51:23 --> 01:51:25
			the CPU processing power to be searching for
		
01:51:25 --> 01:51:26
			extraterrestrial
		
01:51:26 --> 01:51:27
			intelligence.
		
01:51:27 --> 01:51:29
			I know that sounds weird and all that
		
01:51:29 --> 01:51:31
			stuff right now. Right? Maybe with SpaceX now
		
01:51:31 --> 01:51:33
			it's not as weird, you know, Elon Musk
		
01:51:33 --> 01:51:34
			trying to get to Mars. But
		
01:51:34 --> 01:51:36
			you can use your computer and you could
		
01:51:36 --> 01:51:38
			disconnect it anytime you want. This is old
		
01:51:38 --> 01:51:39
			technology.
		
01:51:39 --> 01:51:41
			Anyone ever used torrent?
		
01:51:41 --> 01:51:43
			Anyone used torrent technology? Yeah. I'm not gonna
		
01:51:43 --> 01:51:45
			ask you what you used it for, you
		
01:51:45 --> 01:51:48
			know. But but you use torrent technology. It's
		
01:51:48 --> 01:51:50
			the same thing. Torrents work the exact same
		
01:51:50 --> 01:51:51
			thing. It's distributed.
		
01:51:52 --> 01:51:54
			Obviously, there's a lot of software piracy and
		
01:51:54 --> 01:51:56
			video piracy and all of that. But how
		
01:51:56 --> 01:51:57
			does it work? It's distributed. So all of
		
01:51:57 --> 01:52:00
			you are uploading and you're downloading from different
		
01:52:00 --> 01:52:02
			nodes across the network at the same time.
		
01:52:02 --> 01:52:04
			It's not controlled by one specific person. It's
		
01:52:04 --> 01:52:07
			distributed across. And so that's how it functions.
		
01:52:07 --> 01:52:08
			Okay? You had a question.
		
01:52:14 --> 01:52:16
			In principle, is it haram to invest in
		
01:52:16 --> 01:52:19
			currencies? I answered this question technically. Is it
		
01:52:19 --> 01:52:20
			haram to invest in currencies for speculation?
		
01:52:21 --> 01:52:23
			The question is what do you mean by
		
01:52:23 --> 01:52:25
			speculation? Right. So there's 3 principles. 1, there
		
01:52:25 --> 01:52:26
			should be no riba
		
01:52:27 --> 01:52:27
			involved
		
01:52:28 --> 01:52:30
			when you're doing that trade, because sometimes there's
		
01:52:30 --> 01:52:31
			a delay.
		
01:52:31 --> 01:52:33
			Right? Number 2, it should be on the
		
01:52:33 --> 01:52:35
			spot, should be hand to hand. And number
		
01:52:35 --> 01:52:36
			3,
		
01:52:37 --> 01:52:39
			the the type of speculation that you're doing
		
01:52:39 --> 01:52:41
			and the type of information that you have
		
01:52:41 --> 01:52:42
			available is what determines
		
01:52:43 --> 01:52:44
			whether it's
		
01:52:44 --> 01:52:46
			allowed speculation or not allowed speculation.
		
01:52:49 --> 01:52:50
			Mhmm.
		
01:53:11 --> 01:53:13
			Okay. So it's not that it's different. It's
		
01:53:13 --> 01:53:16
			the same. So the ruling on investing in
		
01:53:16 --> 01:53:16
			Brazil,
		
01:53:17 --> 01:53:19
			Brazil's currency because you think the economy is
		
01:53:19 --> 01:53:22
			gonna change is the same ruling on investing
		
01:53:22 --> 01:53:24
			in cryptocurrency. It's not that it's different.
		
01:53:24 --> 01:53:26
			The question comes back down to what is
		
01:53:26 --> 01:53:29
			the answer on that question? And there's a
		
01:53:29 --> 01:53:31
			range of scholarly opinions. That's why I don't
		
01:53:31 --> 01:53:33
			wanna give you one specific thing,
		
01:53:33 --> 01:53:37
			because I'm myself not fully decided on where
		
01:53:37 --> 01:53:39
			exactly you draw the line here, but I
		
01:53:39 --> 01:53:40
			can narrow it down
		
01:53:41 --> 01:53:43
			to where this range of opinions
		
01:53:44 --> 01:53:44
			fall.
		
01:53:45 --> 01:53:47
			And the range of opinions fall, like I
		
01:53:47 --> 01:53:48
			said, it falls within a range of
		
01:53:49 --> 01:53:52
			the amount of information and the type of
		
01:53:52 --> 01:53:54
			information, whether you have fundamental information or you
		
01:53:54 --> 01:53:56
			have technical information
		
01:53:56 --> 01:53:58
			of a lot of people are buying into
		
01:53:58 --> 01:53:59
			this thing, therefore, I'm gonna go buy into
		
01:53:59 --> 01:54:01
			it, that's on the side of
		
01:54:01 --> 01:54:02
			excessive speculation.
		
01:54:03 --> 01:54:05
			If you actually have some type of more
		
01:54:05 --> 01:54:07
			inside information about
		
01:54:09 --> 01:54:11
			something that's going on is happening, and you
		
01:54:11 --> 01:54:13
			wanna get your own money out of your
		
01:54:13 --> 01:54:16
			own currency because you think it's gonna be
		
01:54:16 --> 01:54:17
			going down and you decide to put it
		
01:54:17 --> 01:54:19
			into another currency, this is not considered to
		
01:54:19 --> 01:54:21
			be excessive gharar or excessive
		
01:54:22 --> 01:54:23
			uncertainty.
		
01:54:23 --> 01:54:26
			And in between these two kind of extreme
		
01:54:26 --> 01:54:27
			scenarios is a gray area,
		
01:54:28 --> 01:54:30
			and that's where all the differences of opinion
		
01:54:30 --> 01:54:32
			fall within that gray area. So that's all
		
01:54:32 --> 01:54:34
			I can do for you now is hone
		
01:54:34 --> 01:54:34
			it down.
		
01:54:35 --> 01:54:36
			To
		
01:54:37 --> 01:54:39
			learn more about that gray area?
		
01:54:42 --> 01:54:43
			Yeah.
		
01:54:49 --> 01:54:51
			I'll give you an update at Fajr, inshallah.
		
01:54:52 --> 01:54:54
			Yes, brother, on the side. Yeah.
		
01:56:54 --> 01:56:56
			Sure. Who has not asked a question? You
		
01:56:56 --> 01:56:57
			haven't asked a question?
		
01:56:58 --> 01:56:59
			You wanna add one more?
		
01:57:00 --> 01:57:02
			That's considered riba, you know.
		
01:57:03 --> 01:57:04
			Go ahead.
		
01:57:31 --> 01:57:33
			No. It's always better to be safe if
		
01:57:33 --> 01:57:34
			something is in the gray area.
		
01:57:36 --> 01:57:38
			You already asked a question. Who? You asked
		
01:57:38 --> 01:57:41
			a question already? No. You did not, mister
		
01:57:41 --> 01:57:41
			Smith.
		
01:57:45 --> 01:57:45
			I will rephrase.
		
01:58:12 --> 01:58:15
			Are we there yet, basically? Okay. K. So
		
01:58:15 --> 01:58:16
			the question is, what is the prediction of
		
01:58:16 --> 01:58:18
			Muslim scholars on
		
01:58:18 --> 01:58:20
			the kind of the time where we have
		
01:58:20 --> 01:58:21
			to
		
01:58:21 --> 01:58:23
			run away to small villages and go on
		
01:58:23 --> 01:58:26
			mountain tops like Hadith says? The prediction is
		
01:58:26 --> 01:58:28
			that we're still far from that. We're not
		
01:58:28 --> 01:58:30
			we're we're not there yet, so don't leave
		
01:58:30 --> 01:58:30
			yet.
		
01:58:36 --> 01:58:37
			We we don't know. We don't know when
		
01:58:37 --> 01:58:38
			it's gonna happen.
		
01:58:38 --> 01:58:39
			So
		
01:58:39 --> 01:58:42
			but, the scholars will notify you when it's
		
01:58:42 --> 01:58:42
			time to leave.
		
01:58:44 --> 01:58:45
			And you will see them leaving.
		
01:58:50 --> 01:58:51
			Zohayb, in the back.
		
01:59:41 --> 01:59:42
			Yeah.
		
01:59:52 --> 01:59:54
			That's good. Let me just repeat that for
		
01:59:54 --> 01:59:55
			the camera. So,
		
01:59:55 --> 01:59:57
			so Heb was reminding us that when we
		
01:59:57 --> 01:59:59
			put our money into a bank account, we're
		
01:59:59 --> 02:00:02
			actually fueling the debt based system, because they're
		
02:00:02 --> 02:00:04
			loaning that money out. So people are trying
		
02:00:04 --> 02:00:06
			to be more socially conscious now, so this
		
02:00:06 --> 02:00:09
			is something that we should, you know, keep
		
02:00:09 --> 02:00:10
			in mind as well.
		
02:00:11 --> 02:00:13
			In the back, all the way in the
		
02:00:13 --> 02:00:13
			back.
		
02:00:26 --> 02:00:28
			Like the golden question of the night.
		
02:00:30 --> 02:00:32
			Golden question of the night.
		
02:00:35 --> 02:00:37
			So some of the scholars
		
02:00:38 --> 02:00:38
			who
		
02:00:39 --> 02:00:40
			gave a fatwa on this,
		
02:00:41 --> 02:00:42
			who kind of are
		
02:00:43 --> 02:00:44
			high level
		
02:00:44 --> 02:00:45
			in governments,
		
02:00:46 --> 02:00:48
			I think that their political affiliations
		
02:00:49 --> 02:00:50
			do affect their fatwas.
		
02:00:52 --> 02:00:54
			And then there are other ones who are
		
02:00:54 --> 02:00:54
			not,
		
02:00:55 --> 02:00:57
			directly affiliated with the government
		
02:00:58 --> 02:00:59
			per se or under the control of a
		
02:00:59 --> 02:01:00
			government.
		
02:01:01 --> 02:01:02
			And they
		
02:01:02 --> 02:01:04
			they came to similar conclusions
		
02:01:05 --> 02:01:07
			without the government pressure.
		
02:01:07 --> 02:01:09
			So I'll just I'll say that.
		
02:01:12 --> 02:01:14
			Yes. Who has not asked a question?
		
02:01:14 --> 02:01:16
			Anyone new wanna ask a question? You you
		
02:01:16 --> 02:01:18
			already asked. You already asked.
		
02:01:20 --> 02:01:20
			Okay.
		
02:01:22 --> 02:01:24
			The reference for Satoshi's article, it's on his
		
02:01:24 --> 02:01:27
			website. I think it's bitcoin.org, whatever. Just type
		
02:01:27 --> 02:01:29
			Satoshi Nakamoto original paper.
		
02:01:30 --> 02:01:32
			White paper. Yeah. White paper, and you'll find
		
02:01:32 --> 02:01:32
			it. Yeah.
		
02:01:33 --> 02:01:35
			It's a very interesting read, to be honest
		
02:01:35 --> 02:01:35
			with you.
		
02:01:43 --> 02:01:45
			Can you buy shares in companies and stuff?
		
02:01:46 --> 02:01:48
			As as as long as the company is
		
02:01:48 --> 02:01:52
			willing to transact with the cryptocurrency. Yeah. The
		
02:01:52 --> 02:01:54
			thing is, the cryptocurrency can do it can
		
02:01:54 --> 02:01:56
			do things that normal currency can't do. Right?
		
02:01:56 --> 02:01:58
			You can do micro payments. You you could
		
02:01:58 --> 02:02:01
			pay someone you you can't pay someone half
		
02:02:01 --> 02:02:03
			a cent, for example. Right?
		
02:02:04 --> 02:02:07
			With with with cryptocurrency, you can. Alright. So
		
02:02:07 --> 02:02:09
			can you imagine like a world where,
		
02:02:10 --> 02:02:12
			instead of having an Internet connection now someone
		
02:02:12 --> 02:02:14
			made this point. Instead of having Internet connection
		
02:02:15 --> 02:02:17
			or or even a cell phone connection, while
		
02:02:17 --> 02:02:18
			you drive around,
		
02:02:19 --> 02:02:20
			the the moment you get next to a
		
02:02:20 --> 02:02:21
			cell phone tower
		
02:02:21 --> 02:02:23
			of a different company you don't have to
		
02:02:23 --> 02:02:25
			sign up with 1 company. Every time you
		
02:02:25 --> 02:02:26
			cross
		
02:02:26 --> 02:02:27
			a cell phone tower,
		
02:02:28 --> 02:02:30
			they charge you for the amount of data
		
02:02:30 --> 02:02:32
			that you're using exactly in front of that
		
02:02:32 --> 02:02:34
			cell phone company, and they can take it
		
02:02:34 --> 02:02:35
			right out of your,
		
02:02:35 --> 02:02:36
			you know, right out of your wallet, and
		
02:02:36 --> 02:02:38
			you could pay a fraction of a payment,
		
02:02:39 --> 02:02:40
			for something like that depending on how much
		
02:02:40 --> 02:02:42
			you use it and just keeps multiplying. Right?
		
02:02:42 --> 02:02:45
			Like this is, you know, these type of
		
02:02:45 --> 02:02:46
			things cannot happen
		
02:02:47 --> 02:02:49
			with the normal system that we have because
		
02:02:50 --> 02:02:51
			of the transaction fees
		
02:02:52 --> 02:02:52
			that
		
02:02:52 --> 02:02:53
			are
		
02:02:53 --> 02:02:54
			associated with it. So there's just so many
		
02:02:54 --> 02:02:55
			potential uses for this technology that it could
		
02:02:55 --> 02:02:56
			develop into. We're gonna see in a decade,
		
02:02:56 --> 02:02:57
			like, where this can
		
02:02:58 --> 02:03:00
			actually go. It's like, today,
		
02:03:00 --> 02:03:01
			the Internet,
		
02:03:05 --> 02:03:07
			nobody thought the Internet really would be like
		
02:03:07 --> 02:03:10
			it is today. Right? Like, 20 years ago,
		
02:03:10 --> 02:03:11
			no one could imagine that this is what's
		
02:03:11 --> 02:03:14
			gonna happen with computers and Internet. And now
		
02:03:14 --> 02:03:15
			you're like, wow.
		
02:03:15 --> 02:03:17
			I'm telling you the same thing's gonna happen
		
02:03:17 --> 02:03:21
			in 10 years with the technology. Not not
		
02:03:21 --> 02:03:22
			necessarily Bitcoin, but the technology.
		
02:03:23 --> 02:03:23
			Right?
		
02:03:34 --> 02:03:34
			Right.
		
02:04:32 --> 02:04:32
			Mhmm.
		
02:04:33 --> 02:04:33
			Yeah.
		
02:05:16 --> 02:05:18
			Right. Right. No. That that's a good point.
		
02:05:18 --> 02:05:20
			So there's the 2 two points I wanna
		
02:05:20 --> 02:05:21
			highlight. One is you said,
		
02:05:22 --> 02:05:24
			there's a difference between
		
02:05:25 --> 02:05:27
			day trading and buying and selling these cryptocurrencies
		
02:05:27 --> 02:05:29
			because you're trying to make a quick buck
		
02:05:29 --> 02:05:29
			out of it,
		
02:05:30 --> 02:05:33
			and a difference between someone who says, look,
		
02:05:33 --> 02:05:34
			I know that this is the future. I
		
02:05:34 --> 02:05:37
			wanna, you know, put my money into this
		
02:05:37 --> 02:05:39
			thing and just put it away for 5
		
02:05:39 --> 02:05:40
			years, and I know that it's gonna be
		
02:05:40 --> 02:05:43
			something big later on. So that's a very
		
02:05:43 --> 02:05:44
			good valid point. The second point that you
		
02:05:44 --> 02:05:46
			mentioned about, you know, the importance of smart
		
02:05:46 --> 02:05:49
			contracts with Ethereum and other technologies,
		
02:05:50 --> 02:05:52
			you know, we want to make sure that
		
02:05:52 --> 02:05:54
			we're we're opening the way for innovation and
		
02:05:54 --> 02:05:56
			we're not stifling innovation.
		
02:05:56 --> 02:05:59
			So I'll put this last point in here,
		
02:05:59 --> 02:06:00
			and then we'll stop.
		
02:06:01 --> 02:06:02
			The idea of
		
02:06:02 --> 02:06:04
			having individual scholars,
		
02:06:05 --> 02:06:06
			who are usually
		
02:06:06 --> 02:06:07
			full time imams,
		
02:06:08 --> 02:06:10
			who are dealing with family counseling issues,
		
02:06:10 --> 02:06:12
			who are sitting there talking about, you know,
		
02:06:12 --> 02:06:14
			oh, my son is not listening to me,
		
02:06:14 --> 02:06:16
			and my daughter went off and
		
02:06:16 --> 02:06:18
			got drunk, or something like that.
		
02:06:19 --> 02:06:22
			Scholars don't have very much time to focus
		
02:06:22 --> 02:06:24
			on issues like this, which are extremely important,
		
02:06:24 --> 02:06:26
			as you can see, because they're so distracted
		
02:06:26 --> 02:06:28
			with so many other things.
		
02:06:28 --> 02:06:30
			And one of the things is, we as
		
02:06:30 --> 02:06:32
			a community, I would argue that as a
		
02:06:32 --> 02:06:34
			Muslim community worldwide,
		
02:06:35 --> 02:06:38
			we don't invest very much money and resources
		
02:06:38 --> 02:06:41
			into Islamic research like we should. And this
		
02:06:41 --> 02:06:43
			is part of the problem. So if you
		
02:06:43 --> 02:06:43
			want sophisticated
		
02:06:44 --> 02:06:46
			answers and you want sophisticated research,
		
02:06:46 --> 02:06:48
			we need to change our mentality, understand that
		
02:06:48 --> 02:06:50
			Islamic research councils
		
02:06:51 --> 02:06:52
			need to be well funded, need to be
		
02:06:52 --> 02:06:54
			supported, need to be developed, so that we
		
02:06:54 --> 02:06:57
			have high level capable scholars coming out with
		
02:06:57 --> 02:07:00
			high level, you know, in-depth research on issues
		
02:07:00 --> 02:07:03
			like this. So until the mentality changes,
		
02:07:03 --> 02:07:05
			we're just gonna keep relying and hoping we
		
02:07:05 --> 02:07:08
			have a few superheroes in the community that
		
02:07:08 --> 02:07:10
			just come along and kinda solve all the
		
02:07:10 --> 02:07:12
			problems for everyone. So I think we really
		
02:07:12 --> 02:07:15
			need to think about what our personal individual
		
02:07:15 --> 02:07:17
			role is in trying to solve this issue
		
02:07:17 --> 02:07:18
			and trying to, you know, create things for
		
02:07:18 --> 02:07:20
			the future. InshaAllah. Jazakamalaykiran
		
02:07:20 --> 02:07:22
			for that. When I close, you can I'll
		
02:07:22 --> 02:07:24
			stick around. You can ask me personally. InshaAllah.
		
02:07:24 --> 02:07:25
			We ask Allah
		
02:07:26 --> 02:07:28
			to increase us in knowledge and wisdom and
		
02:07:28 --> 02:07:28
			practice.
		
02:07:29 --> 02:07:29
			Ask Allah
		
02:07:30 --> 02:07:31
			to show us the truth is truth and
		
02:07:31 --> 02:07:33
			help us to follow it and show us
		
02:07:33 --> 02:07:35
			the falses, falses, keep it and keep us
		
02:07:35 --> 02:07:35
			away from it.
		
02:07:43 --> 02:07:44
			Please help with the chairs if we can
		
02:07:44 --> 02:07:46
			get the chairs put away.