assalam o alaikum
Ramadhan Kareem,
I believe that lending protocols in crypto (like AAVE) is haram (The reasoning, and I quote IFG here, is: “The crucial thing here is that a cryptocurrency is borrowed and then more of that cryptocurrency is returned.”) but I stumbled upon this Defi protocol that market itself as a zero-interest crypto lending protocol; you borrow $10,000? you return $10,000. There is a collateral here though and I’m not sure how this complicates the situation. The getting started page in their docs has this example:
Elon has a small business. His business has 100,000 MATIC tokens as assets. Unfortunately, Elon’s laptop suddenly stopped working, and he will now need a new one. The dilemma that Elon has now is whether to sell his MATIC to buy his new laptop or keep his MATIC because he is bullish about its long term potential to be worth more. QiDao doesn’t want you to have to choose. By using QiDao, Elon can deposit his 100,000 Matic in a vault and borrow stablecoins against that collateral to purchase his new Macbook Pro. Elon gets his new computer and gets to keep all of his MATIC. So, if MATIC prices increase next week, Elon will still be able to realize those gains. Meanwhile, the stablecoins Elon took out against his collateral can be paid back at any time and do not incur any interest.
So, the question is: Is Mai Finance haram?
- Motlaq