ABSTRACT
The blockchain was introduced as the core technology of the bitcoin concept of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. A blockchain is a technique to store, add and validate transaction data in an open computer network by cryptographic techniques in such a way that the correctness, immutability and safety of the data is ensured by a decentralised consensus mechanism. In the bitcoin blockchain, nodes that validate blocks by solving the cryptographic task are called “miners”. For an assessment of bitcoin from a Shari‘ah perspective, it is important to distinguish the coin “bitcoin” from the underlying blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology. The Ethereum blockchain with Ether as its own token can be considered as a kind of operating system for a wide range of decentralised applications. Developments in the field of blockchains, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and intelligent agents have attracted the attention of practitioners and proponents of Islamic finance as well as Shari‘ah scholars.
