Chairman of the Jurisprudential Council of the Central Bank: Using digital currency to import goods is not a legal problem
Hojjatoleslam Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, head of the Central Bank’s jurisprudential council, has said that using digital currencies to import goods and services is not a religious problem. He said that apparently a law has been passed to use digital currencies in foreign trade.
According to digital currency and to Quoted Tasnim, the head of the jurisprudential council of the Central Bank, said this morning during the seventh Islamic financial conference:
Cryptography is an emerging phenomenon. Some cryptocurrencies are called virtual currency, which is something to consider.
Mesbahi Moghaddam added:
By nature, Ramzars is a phenomenon of emerging technologies, its founder is not known and has no legal basis. Although some governments have accepted it, it has not been recognized by most governments.
He noted that one of the challenges these cryptocurrencies face is the sharp fluctuation of their prices:
It is said that we currently have 180 central banks in the world, but there are 15,000 currency codes.
A member of the Expediency Discernment Council stated:
These cryptocurrencies face a combination of transparency and ambiguity; On the one hand, its transparency is related to informing everyone about the quantity of these cryptocurrencies and the number of stakeholders, but it is ambiguous in various ways, the most important of which is the ambiguity in terms of taxation. That is, are the cryptocurrencies mine or not?
Mesbahi Moghaddam explained by asking what is mine:
Everything that is considered customary and rational property is property according to the Shari’a, unless the Shari’ah prohibits and abolishes the tax effects of a property that the rational people consider to be property, for example, if it is edible, it forbids eating it or buying it in some way. Prohibit its sale or maintenance; Then its tax is not legally accepted. But if it has not forbidden its effects, everything that the wise men of the world know is property. But are cryptocurrencies like that?
He added:
According to Sheikh Ansari, it belongs to what is beneficial. For example, all food and clothing, and human habitation and means of transportation are all beneficial, but what are the benefits of cryptocurrencies? They have no consumer benefits.
A member of the jurisprudential council of the Central Bank explained:
It is true that if the cryptocurrencies become currency, they become profitable as intermediaries of exchanges, but until such a benefit is clarified, the cryptocurrencies cannot be said to be property.
Mesbahi Moghaddam explained:
If a central bank in the world, including the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, issues cryptocurrencies or is backed by regional agreements of several countries, or if a law is passed that gives credit to cryptocurrencies, then cryptocurrencies become valuable and become property. But as long as there is no national law or international rule behind these cryptocurrencies, their ownership is questionable.
He stated:
The jurist can give a religious ruling on Ramzarz when it is established that the wise consider it to be his property. The fact that a part of the society has accepted it and is producing, buying and selling it is not sufficient to become a property. If this happens in the future, then it will become property in the sense that the general public, not a small part of them, will approve it. Property is what the common sense considers to be property, not a small group.
The expert on Islamic economics continued by pointing out that the future of cryptocurrencies is not clear:
I just heard that Satoshi has left Bitcoin. However, the principle of who Satoshi is and that there is such a person is unclear. Now what if the others behind these cryptocurrencies, whose credentials have been credited to the cryptocurrencies, say goodbye one by one?
Mesbahi Moghaddam said:
Fluctuation in the value of these cryptocurrencies is another matter. One day it is less than one dollar and the next day it is more than 40 to 60 thousand dollars and it falls or rises at once. Money is what is the measure of value and must be stable in itself. If money is one of the scales for measuring value, this scale does not include cryptocurrencies because they fluctuate greatly. Therefore, they are not considered as a scale.
Referring to the openness of the investigation in terms of thematology and recognition of the sentence in this regard, he said:
Most imitators believe that cryptocurrencies are not taxed and therefore have no legitimacy.
A member of the jurisprudential council of the Central Bank explained a point in this regard:
The Supreme Leader of the Revolution has said that it is acceptable if the issue of cryptocurrencies becomes legal. That is, if a law comes behind the cryptocurrencies that, for example, the parliament declares a cryptocurrency valid and finds legal support, it becomes property.
Mesbahi Moghaddam continued:
Of course, it should not be overlooked that in addition to the things that are known as property, there are things that are not legally known as property, but belong to someone. For example, Miteh is not taxed according to Sharia. For example, if a person’s sheep dies of starvation, these sheep are not taxed but have the right to own and use them. Passwords are produced by people, so these products belong to them.
He mentioned:
If the Islamic Republic made a law that, for example, these cryptocurrencies could be used for import, which apparently has been approved. There is no problem, because it belongs to the producer and elsewhere it is considered property and in exchange for it. It is not legal to sell pigs, but it can be sold to someone of other religions and paid for. So even though the cryptocurrencies are not the property, they are the subject of the right of assignment, and therefore this right can be exchanged for something and used. Therefore, the import of goods and services using cryptocurrencies produced by Iranians or purchased in world markets can be a source of import and is not prohibited by law.