UAE
According to a report from Arabian Business, the public launch of the new token took place in May. $ISLM operated on the Haqq blockchain, which was compatible with the Ethereum network and thousands of applications worldwide. It aimed to address the reservations that observant Muslims had about digital assets and how they fit in with the customs of Islam. Islamic Coin had already received accreditation and authorization through the Fatwa of several Muslim authorities.
Haqq’s stated mission was to provide the global Muslim population with a financial platform enabling real-time, transparent, and cross-border transactions while supporting Web3 innovations and philanthropy.
To help achieve its philanthropic goals, the network pledged to dedicate 10% of each Islamic Coin to Evergreen DAO – a non-profit virtual foundation focused on long-term sustainability and community impact – to fund community projects in the Muslim world.
To help with adoption, the Haqq Association, the ecosystem’s non-profit arm, partnered with the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) to increase blockchain and crypto awareness with a positive learning environment.
Additionally, Haqq formed several commercial partnerships with retail and e-commerce platforms to introduce Sharia-compliant Web3 technologies into traditional Web2 environments. Most recently, the project partnered with Holiday Swap, the world’s largest home exchange platform, to transition the company’s tokenized operations to Web3.
To help decide if a project wishing to launch on the Haqq blockchain was compliant with Islamic principles, Islamic Coin appointed a Sharia board that included 40 banks, with Standard Chartered, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, and Dubai Islamic Bank listed among its members.
Due to the public and open-source nature of the blockchain, projects that weren’t Sharia-compliant could still launch on the network, but they would not receive the badge that indicated compliance and elicited a higher level of trust within the community.
Haqq, which meant ‘truth’ in Arabic, was designed to stringently abide by Islamic principles and traditions on finance. Islamic Coin was the primary token of value within the ecosystem, providing the global Muslim population with a financial platform that offered a 100% halal cryptocurrency.
The Haqq Association and the London-based DDCAP GroupTM entered into a Memorandum of Understanding last month to explore potential collaboration opportunities. The aim was to utilize DDCAP’s Sharia-compliant financial technology to develop industry-grade systems that could meet the growing demand for such services. One notable focus of the collaboration was the creation of a Web3 alternative to the SWIFT payments system.
According to Mohammed AlKaff AlHashmi, co-founder of Haqq, the Islamic Coin had the potential to become a tier-one asset. AlHashmi expressed his belief that if only 3-4% of the online Muslim community held the coin, it could achieve a similar scale to Bitcoin.
The global Islamic finance market was projected to exceed $3.69 trillion by 2024, while the Halal products market was expected to surpass $4 trillion. AlHashmi emphasized that the scope of Halal had expanded beyond just food, extending to healthcare products, cosmetics, and ensuring alignment with community ethics and values.
With a global population exceeding 1.8 billion people, AlHashmi highlighted that the Muslim community represented an “untapped and underserved” market in the world of cryptocurrency. Interestingly, he also noted that Islamic finance was gaining traction among non-Muslims, as at least 50% of Haqq’s private sales of Islamic Coin were purchased by individuals outside the Muslim community.
In 2022, the MENA region witnessed cryptocurrency transactions worth $566 billion in value, reflecting a substantial 48% increase compared to the previous year. This data underlined the growing significance of cryptocurrencies within the region.
