Bitcoin Forum

Matthew J. Martin is a 30-year-old who grow up in Earlville, New York as the son of a teacher and a skilled blue collar worker. He now lives in San Francisco, where he is building a business around using Bitcoin to allow Muslims around the world to participate in finance without breaking Islamic law.

Blossom is now based in Indonesia, where there is a demand for Islamic finance. While there wasn't enough demand for Islamic financing in the US, the opposite is true in Indonesia, where there are more than 200 million Muslims, according to Pew Research. "Eighty percent of the population is 'unbanked,'" Martin said. "There is a huge need for investment capital."

Blossom recently got its first investment from BMT Nusantara Condet, a financial institution that operates under Islamic principles.

"This investment will help 10 to 20 micro businesses within Indonesia to expand," Martin said. "The idea of helping people create their own businesses to earn a decent living holds a special place in my heart."

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-bitcoin-startup-that-helps-muslims-get-loans-without-breaking-islamic-law (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-bitcoin-startup-that-helps-muslims-get-loans-without-breaking-islamic-law)

I guess that the project is going to be very successful If we take in consideration that there is ~1.7 billion muslim around the world today (assuming that the project will go worldwide at some point). If Muslims don't take loans , It's only because of the interest which is against our religion and something that allow to take loans without breaking our laws is more then welcomed.

Its a good initiative, and I am sure he has good intentions but the reservations I have is why come with division? Bitcoin over the few years it has been in existence, has made transactions seamless where people pay for goods and services without caring for which faith you belong and scammers have also been there too without recourse to religion. But with this, I see it as now a means to separate Muslims from other people which I am sure negate the founding principles of the inventor of this technology.

I am on board for any project and idea which will bolster bitcoin credibility and allow BTC to gain adoption.
If Muslims believe that standard banking system and collecting interests is evil, then Bitcoin might actually be the best for them.
But before seeing detailed explanation of how this lending platform will work exactly, I hold my judgement.

I don't see why BTC had to be used for this. I understand the use of the Blockchain and such but the same could be done using a paper trail of Bank Transfers etc. If the company was practicing legally then they'd clearly be on top of the loans they give out either way, so I don't see what added benefit the Blockchain transparency brings in this case.
Secondly, this isn't necessarily good for BTC. The loans themselves would just be converted to FIAT so the BTC link would end there...

When I think of sharia law, I think of the taliban and ISIS.

The taliban engage in human trafficking, opium production, arms dealing and all types of illicit, illegal, activities. The taliban are essentially a criminal organization. One might say that ISIS is also organized crime and does many of these same things.

What could make sense here is this sharia bitcoin start up will be used by the taliban, ISIS and other pro sharia law groups for illegal things.

This article is from 2015. Wonder if there is an update to it, somewhere.

Hey dude, don't let the media put shit on your brain. Enough. You live as people who knows about blockchain technology, bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and you still have a brain like 1970's. Be smart.
I am from Indonesia, and I obedient to the Sharia law. It's our law's of God. Indonesia are not imposing the Sharia law in their country, it's all depend on the peoples personally.
One of the Sharia law is about finances. Islam has forbid a debt with interest. So you can see in Indonesia there is two kind of bank, it is conventional bank and Sharia bank.
Stop thinking about terorist, because there is no terorist in this world. There's only villains with religion masked.

I find your comment racist somehow. There is 1.7 billion muslim out there, If they all do what you claim then everyone would be dead by now. Almost every muslim country out there don't impose the sharia law on their citizen but muslims impose them on themselves because they believe on them, If drinking and doing drugs is against the sharia law then you simply don't do them without the need of government watching you or making rules about them. It's mostly the personal belief.

Hey I live next door to a muslim,He runs his own IT firm and one of the most helpful people I know.Not all muslims belong to terrorist organisations most have a bigger hate of ISIS than us.

What does that mean? All financial institutions operate under only one principle: GREED. Im not saying greed is bad. In their industry, its needed actually. Their competitors will eat them alive if their not willing to be ruthless. That brings me to the question how much interest is Blossom charging to the micro businesses that borrowed money from them?

I think we can all agree Bitcoin isn't a good currency for loans or lending, sharia loans or other loans; its the same.

It doesn't make sense to build a sharia loan network utilizing bitcoin. Not everyone has a computer or cell phone to make bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin probably isn't as well supported as local currencies in indonesia or elsewhere, this doesn't change. If legal disputes arose, it would be difficult to prove which person each bitcoin address belongs to. There's a reason scammers target bitcoin--its because they can cheat people with bitcoin and they will probably get away with it. You understand this? Bitcoin sharia loans don't make sense, bitcoin isn't a good currency for loans.

The most likely reason a person would build a "sharia bitcoin loan agency" is probably to create another version of silk road for criminal purposes. One that might be used to fund terrorism/extremism. If that happened, it could be bad for bitcoins credibility.

That is why I don't support this.

There are much better ways to implement sharia lending than bitcoin. If you think that's racist, I would like to know why you think this is so.

Interesting view. I kinda share the same opinion. Muslim banking system is full of ridiculous laws and workarounds.
Islam forbids interests, so banks or lenders need to find profits elsewhere. Standard situation is when the bank will 'look over' borrower's business.
The profit from that business will be shared with the bank, so it is not technically an interests.
I feel like using cryptourrencies might be another way to 'cheat' that religious system. But this time it's probably due to bitcoin volatility or exchange rate.

As I know there is know cheating in Islamic law in all aspects economy, law, and others. If there is a cheat, it is not the law of islam but the people who practice the law.

Nothing to offend the Islamic religion or followers. I came to know that an institute or financial service demanding to pay interest for loans itself an opposing of their law. In reality one or two Islamic banks follow it, but no bank pay interest for the savings made. So I don't think this is that necessary as people have already violated in a big scale.

I was been work in Middle East region for some years and I had the salary and savings account at there. Islamic banks will not put interest to your account and won't collect the interest or any charges simply. In the month Ramadan they use the take automatically some fund from each Islamic person's account who have an account in Islamic banks as a Zakath. If bitcoin arise to move with the Islamic-based services. It will be really great for all Muslims around the world.

I am not sure how things work with the said bank and if you are talking about dubai islamic bank i am sure that there wont be any charges during ramdan and they wont take anything in the name of zakath but as any banks you have to pay service charges and if you really think that the so called banks will take any unforseen money ,which i never had a experience ,you can shift to other banks.

As a muslim i really want a bitcoin start up finance based on our religion's perspective. I am currently using "Islamic Bank" where they can't charge interest because of shari'a instead invested our money like purchase something to get profit. Under Islamic law, money must not be allowed to create more money for example lending money to someone and charged interest of it and it's clearly that islam prohibits ribaa (charged interest), after reading that news i am so gratefull especially for Marthew for making this start up because this is the first one, now muslims in this world can contribute in the cryptocurrency and making profit without worried about ribaa. I wish this will successfull.

If the project is not going right I would be happy with others, Muslim or not help make it possible by starting a project of our own.I am non-muslim and it would be good to have an interfaith team

The main thing is that bitcoin does not begin to help terrorism. If good Muslims are engaged in crypto currency, then this is even good.

Ehhh...how about having a money that has no fucking religious connection or importance to it at all?  Frankly I agree with the guy above who said that Islamic banking is full of stupid restrictions and so forth.  When you start to impose your delusion of god upon any banking system, guess what?  It will tend to be very messed up.  I could care less what muslims do with their money.  Keep religion out of it and fucking far away from this forum at least.

And you are right, you really are a religion and political issues better and do not understand, because they always make acrimony in human relationships. And we see illustrative examples around the world that a person's anger can create.

oh so the silk road was ok but Muslims are not, no wonder the world is in such a mess with the post's here

Nice straw man argument there.  Who said silk road was ok?  And Islam is responsible for a lot of the world's problems, and anyone denying that is lost beyond recovery.   Same is true for Judaism and Christianity and all the other popular delusions.   

What do you people expect when a thread about religion gets injected into a forum about money?  That's why this thread shouldn't exist.  Bitcoin should be religion free.

Moslems are not terorists. Cryptocurrency is decentrelized and moslems have the right to use crypto because it is decentrelized.

Going back to the bible, Jesus threw the moneylenders and gamblers out of the temple.He never threw the currency after them. (this was in reply to a comment above that now has been removed)

Bitcoin and God are completely different things and you can not connect them in any way. Because this is a real blasphemy. And if we take the crypto-currency to link it with the Muslim faith, we will get an infernal mixture altogether.

Well majority of Muslims are unaware of the current banking system. Interest is strictly forbidden for muslims, i have many friends, I have all asked them one simple question, "Do you know how does the banking system work?" All of them surprisingly did not have a single clue, We all know that the banking system is based on interest and when i revealed to them, they got shocked. But their response is usually that they can't do anything about it, It has become a norm to use the fiat, They can't buy stuff from local store etc. Which is kind of true, I believe if the awareness is spread among the Developing countries like Indonesia, India, Pakistan etc, Bitcoin's Price could Sky Rocket 10x or even 50x, But only if the awareness is spread. well that's my opinion.

I haven't seen  developers of criptocurrency who are moslems. I just see the users. Once moslems developers of crypto exist in this world , I am sure many types or tokens or crypto will be developed spreadly by moslems community.

As I know there is know cheating in Islamic law in all aspects economy, law, and others. If there is a cheat, it is not the law of islam but the people who practice the law.

I think Mathew (the guy who created this project) is the first one though he just converted to Islam about 5 years ago, and this is also the first project based on Islamic Sharia. However, there are many projects that many Moslems out there wants like creating a project or something that helping Moslems for paying shadaqah (charity) or zakat, cause in Islamic perspective Sadaqah should always be given secretly which is really fit with bitcoin or cryptocurrency nature the "anonymity" It's gonna be awesome.

This will bring Muslim community closer to crypto world. Most of the Muslim countries are very closed, and we will see how will they accept this in some of their strongholds. Good that they are doing something on this filed, crypto currencies have advantages over fiat for them and if they see that we can have more people involved. This is the first time that I hear for this kind of projects, we will see how big success will they make, and will there be some new services for Muslim community.

Sometimes the reality is difficult, the struggle needs sacrifice and not as easy as reversing the hand.
I'm very happy to see the project Bitcoin Start Up Finance Based On Islamic Sharia .. keep the spirit with his project. Do not give up will live ..
I will keep monitoring this thread. GL

Mainly it would really affect bitcoins price since adoption does increase but we should really think up also on negative side some of them will surely use it to transfer money on hidden way.Not being sarcastic but knowing muslims they are really have some intent.
Move on, back to topic this is really a good news because bitcoins adoption is already spreading.

This is it
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1884084.0

Mathew j. Martin for me this is a great idea and we have to encourage you either Muslim or nor muslim. The sharia laws did not enable payment of interest on lending or loans and if this coin will provide for that I think it  is a great relieved for some muslim who loves crypto currencies and what to do business with it.

There are many financial system in islam that needs trusted, fast, and acurate applicatoin such as zakat, sodaqoh and infaq. Financing in business in islamic law also needs transparancy. Blockchain tech fits with the islamic financing I think.

I think there are many prohibited terms for a human in the religion Islam due to which a perfect muslim regrets to follow some internet related businesses. So, there are much probabilities in Onegram to be followed by millions of muslims as it is a sharia (Islam) complaint.

It depends on onegram developers. Are they really going to bring muslims to better financial system or just to make profit from the abundant source of wealth of muslims community. As a muslim I am searching the best and no sharia complaint to keep the money. How onegram aswer this challenge?

but there are a lot of banks that are operating in Muslim countries. even some countries are claiming that they are working according to the slamic sheri law. for example, United bank LTD, Habib bank LTD, National Bank. Allied Bank, Muslim Commercial bank. Bank al islami. First women bank, Khyber Bank. Bank of Punjab and many more are operating in a Muslim state.

There are moslems that hold islamic sharia stritctly and some others are not. In indonesia most worker in conventional banks are moslems. However, in era of 90, Intelectual moslems appear to pioneer Sharia Compliant Banking Industry. In indonesia there are Muamalat Bank, BNI Syariah Bank, BRI Syariah Bank, Mega Syariah Bank, And many others, The growth of shariah banks are amazing. It means that moslems are waiting the financial institution that sharia compliant.

Financial institutions or services that follow the Sharia is a must, because Moslems are quite attached to the regulations provided by their religion. Recently an ICO program too is going on following the Sharia compilation backed by gold. So this helps Moslems who hesitate of law to use crypts without any violation.

onegram is having ICO now. I joined facebook and twitter bounty, I am still waiting if the ICO success or not. If the team are legit hope the coin legit too.

Banks are only here to fool people.. They have successfully made people believe in a worthless piece of paper.. Do u think it is hard for them to fool ordinary muslims? The basics are all same.. They all charge interest and give it a different name..

Without investigation, we can't say that they are charge interest and give the different names.
I think if they are doing good work for the Muslims than it is great, because they are better for me and you, because they are doing that work only for helping the poor people.
But now i have little knowledge about them, but i will study about them and read them in detail and search about it.

I have done my research mate. They use the term "Riba" which is just another word for interest. I have done quite a hefty research on Banks, So i know what i am talking about. People are not aware of it period.

An Islamic Banking that doesn't charge interest and truly apply Islamic syaria applies rule in mode of transaction for example. Bank Rakyat Indonesia Syaria not apply interest. I talked to one of the employee how to buy a house via this bank? They say no third party just two party customer and seller. The bank acts as the seller. First, the bank buy the house, and sell to the customer in credit payment. For example I buy a house for 300 million worth. The bank buy the house from the first owner, then keep the house certificate then sell the house to me 350 or 400 million in credit for 10 years. That's not riba. I don't lend money from bank but I buy house in credit.

What ever makes you sleep at night better.. Buying a property for 300 million and selling it for an instant 350 million is an interest.. It would have been only truly islamic if the bank bought the house for you and didn't make a instant profit of 50 million.. Just different tactics used by them nothing more..

What ever spin you put on it. It still interest and the bank gets percentage of the outstanding loan. No banks in the banking history has survived without charging any interest for their customers. And I agree with the poster above me, It could have been truly Islamic if the bank has charge 0% interest, but it didn't happened because they have to earn from it and that is how the banks around the globe works. Sad but true.

Interest in Islamic law is when we borrow money and return the money with higher amount of value. I don't borrow money but I buy a house and the bank act as the seller. The bank doesn't lend me money. the bank sell the house because the bank has own the house from first seller party. That's sell and buy not riba. That'e legal in Islamic law.

So you are trying to tell me.. A bank buys a house.. And *poof* the value of house goes up by 50 million dollar in an instant? Nice going. Then again you are not allowed to exploit people, so how do you say this isn't exploitation?

That's a great news for me, if this project will run properly then it would be preferable for many Muslims, but some guys have made some objection regarding terrorism which is very unfortunate. Only Muslim is not creating this type of anti human activities. So we should not blame any religion in such a way.

I am muslim, We are muslim in Indonesia. We are not terorists. Only a few percent of muslim who have the ideology of terorism. We call the ideology of terorist as Khawarij. This is a secte not all muslim. Prophet Muhammad asked the Khawarij to be killed. So we hate terorism too not only westen but also muslim wolrd.
Back to the topic. Buying a house with higher price isn't exploitation. OK If you buy bitcoin with your dollar for $2500 then sell for 3000. is this explotitation? No. You buy a house for USD 20,000 then you sell USD 25,000. You give installment for 5 years. 5 years for USD 25,000 . Is that exploitation? That's is business that is transction of sell and buy.

This looks good has a purpose to help a decent life, If this plan is broadcast through the media there must be a lot of support about this goal.

Just in case anyone is still watching this thread- there is a project working in a similar vein. Check it out.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2137399

Ummati.io

Facebook.com/ummatiplatform

Medium.com/ummati

Bitcoin with the Islamic Shari'ah means Bitcoin and similar systems, enabling an adequate medium and this can be used as a financial and Islamic banking exchange rather than usury supported by Fiat currency by the Central Bank. and of course this will be used by some circles as well as among those who can not have accounts, on a small scale trade across state borders. I think this is a project or a pretty good method considering there are many Muslims from different parts of the world who might be interested in this method without having to get out of sharia law about finance according to Islamic teachings. this of course can prove that bitcoin will have a great future without any limitations.

This is wrong definition you have given here bro. Islamic sharia is called as any financial system which acting as helpful for consumers without interest and avoiding worst fees all the services. Lets see what will happen how they gonna handle it.
Islamic banking sector from the Dubai seems adopting bitcoin related projects there and gonna take the banking deposit option also will be taken part on them.

i’m not read about Islamic Sharia  but bitcoin is most legal and accept coin.

about loan i now Muslims can take loan if they back it with same value . it’s hard but possible