TL;DR Breakdown
• The head of the Indonesian Muslims believes that cryptos raise doubts among holders.
• Indonesia has had crypto-friendly policies according to the national government.
The cryptocurrency market has gone through various regulations, but the most peculiar is the religious one. Recently an extremist group in Asia said that tokens like Bitcoin would be banned as harmful, supporting gambling and creating uncertainty among holders.
MUI, which would correspond to the initials of the Muslim extremist group, says that the cryptos are “haram” after going through a meeting of professionals in the financial world. The opinions could greatly affect the financial market in Indonesia because the Muslim group has power over the financial agencies and even the central agencies of the country.
Muslim extremists in Indonesia do not support cryptocurrencies
For some time now, the most relevant Muslim groups in Indonesia, such as MUI, have analyzed the value of cryptocurrencies. According to the extremists, these virtual currencies have no real value, so they prohibit their trade, at least for Muslims.
However, the national government seems to think otherwise, considering allowing the crypto trade to flow without regulations. The only thing the government cares about is maintaining the value of its legal currency, which would be the Indonesian Rupee. The central authority allows both crypto and fiat financial models to be used by citizens without problems.
Although the opinions of the MUI group have not yet affected the crypto trade that the country manages, maybe with these regulations, a large number of Muslims will stop trading cryptos which would cause destabilization. Muslims could make protests against cryptocurrencies which would motivate the Central Bank to act against them.
According to reports in Indonesia, crypto trading rose to more than $26 billion in the first two quarters of the year. The country has empowered cryptos against its local currency, which brings discontent among extremist Muslim groups.
Muslims in the country may also be upset by other Islamic countries’ actions against cryptocurrencies. Dubai is building laws for virtual currencies, just like in the Bahrain region.
Indonesian muslims explain crypto trading ban
The head of the Muslim group in Indonesia, Asronun Sholeh, said that cryptocurrencies have traits not linked to Islam laws. Sholeh believes that Muslims are not comfortable using cryptocurrency, showing it is an unnecessary currency for the country. However, the graphs that the country has presented in Asia contradict the claims of the Islamic group.
Indonesia could experience a drop in its crypto adoption rate before the end of the year if Muslims stop trading cryptos. So far, the virtual market in Asia remains stable because the government or the Central Bank has not indicated that they will change their stance towards cryptos.
