Bytecoin (BCN) is currently marked questionable - not a clean pass or a confirmed fail, per our own multi-standard crypto screen. Our full reasoning, the standards behind it and the facts it rests on are below.
The standards we screen on do not agree about this asset.
4 of 6 permit it; 2 do not. We report that as unsettled rather than picking a side for you.
Independently corroborated. 3 separate models read this coin and agreed on every fact the verdict turns on, though 2 minor fields could not be established by all of them.
Not established: enables haram activity, transparent governance. Our verdict does not assume anything about these — where they would change the answer, we say so rather than guessing.
The Council's ruling is Bitcoin-specific and says other coins need separate examination; this is not a currency-like asset, so its name is not attached to a pass here.
Fiqh Council of North America, “Regarding the Islamic Ruling on Bitcoins” — default permissibility; treated as fiat currency, so all riba rulings and bai’ al-sarf apply
No clear evidence of prohibition: no riba, no impermissible underlying activity, and a real function.
Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America — Dr. Salah Al-Sawy (Secretary General) and Dr. Yasir Qadhi: transactions are permissible unless clear evidence prohibits them
This standard requires transparent governance to be established, and we could not establish it. An unestablished requirement is not a satisfied one, so this reads as unresolved rather than as a pass.
Securities Commission Malaysia, Shariah Advisory Council, 233rd-234th meetings, June-July 2020
Project, token and reward layers all pass.
Amanah Advisors, Crypto Shariah Screening Framework (Mufti Faraz Adam)
A real function, and no interest-derived return.
Amanie Advisors (Dr. Daud Bakar) — Shariah certification of Ethereum staking; validation treated as a real service rendered to the network rather than a return on capital
No interest-derived return to the holder.
AAOIFI Shariah Standards - riba and non-permissible income, applied to the token's return mechanism (no dedicated crypto standard exists)
No intrinsic backing and no issuing authority; excessive gharar under this position, which applies to most digital assets including Bitcoin.
Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani (crypto trading and investment impermissible); Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah (Egypt, 2018); Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi (Turkey, 2017)
The restrictive position above is shown but excluded from our own verdict: it rejects most digital assets including Bitcoin on gharar alone, so letting it decide would mark nearly everything non-compliant — which is neither our conclusion nor a defensible reading of the evidence. Hiding it would be worse.
This is our own screening verdict, reached by applying each named standard ourselves to the facts above, last established 2026-08-29. Research, not a fatwa — for a decision that binds you, ask a scholar you trust.
Bytecoin is the first cryptocurrency created with CryptoNote technology. Bytecoin allows users to make absolutely anonymous money transfers through the CryptoNote algorithm. CryptoNote uses CryptoNote ring signatures to provide anonymous transactions and allows you to sign a message on behalf of a group. The signature only proves the message was created by someone from the group, but all the possible signers are indistinguishable from each other. Even if outgoing transactions are untraceable, everyone may still be able to see the payments received and thus determine one's income. By using a variation of the Diffie-Hellman exchange protocol, a receiver has multiple unique one-time addresses derived from his single public key. After funds are sent to these addresses they can only be redeemed by the receiver; and it would be impossible to cross-link these payments. As a primarily peer-to-peer (p2p) payment system, Bytecoin has many of the same use-cases as Bitcoin. Created in 2012, Bytecoin is one of the earliest developed cryptocurrencies. Until recently, the team behind the coin has kept themselves anonymous. Now, though, they’ve opened up multiple communication channels, removed some layers of anonymity, and even built several local communities. Bitcoin’s PoW consensus algorithm heavily favors miners that use powerful GPU and ASIC machines over those trying to mine with CPUs. This causes the network to centralize around the more powerful miners. Bytecoin attempts to close the gap between these two classes of miners with a new algorithm, Egalitarian Proof-of-Work (PoW). Egalitarian PoW uses a version of skrypt, a proof of work function similar to the hashcash function used by Bitcoin. The difference between the two is that scrypt isn’t memory bound. Because of this, you can produce highly efficient CPU mining rigs. GPUs will always be about 10 times more effective, though. The Bytecoin project has been fairly fractured since its inception in July 2012. Previously, several isolated teams worked on the project without seemingly communicating with each other. This led to numerous forks and versions of the coin. In July 2017, the team decided to change their image and provide more transparency to the community. The team still remains pseudo-anonymous by only providing names and headshots on their webpage – no bios or social media links. But, it’s tough to expect more from a project that’s focused on privacy. The team has been busy at work refactoring their code and are planning to release a new public API on February 6, 2018. They’ll also be entering the Asian, Middle East, and African markets throughout 2018.
Background via CoinGecko — informational, not part of the verdict.
Peer movement computing — it will appear here on its own.
Plain-language summary of the evidence already on this page — the Sharia screen, structure, momentum, and order flow above. It explains the read; it doesn't make the call. Generated on demand (a live AI call), never run automatically.
