I’m quite new to Bisq and have been going through documentation and even videos. When I started looking at the blog, I noticed the mention of interest in regards to arbitrators.
Now, Muslims usually want to stay away from interest, but the same time I imagine it would be annoying for you guys to bother with shariah compliance. So perhaps instead you guys can have a page describing all measures you guys take mitigate financial risk, if anyone of you guys have understanding of Shariah, point out the different ways that a muslim would be involved in interest by using Bisq?
I realise that you guys are open source and all that and even have DAO governance, I’m just worried of an overwhelming western idealogy colouring Bisq development and economical mechanisms. And while, in the end, Bisq may end up being unusable by the Muslim population of the world, being transparent about economical aspects that islamic law disagrees with could in turn attract both muslim thinkers and developers to help improve Bisq for a large portion of humanity.
Edit:
So to summarise, for now, what I am trying ask is what kinds of risk-mitigation when it comes to economical aspects does Bisq provide? From what I understand, interest is used for arbitrators because that is seen to carry some defined risk? What are those risks? Where else does Bisq use western-economics-defined interest?
And lastly, if someone were to provide you with resources describing the Islamic-economic-defined interest or riba, would Bisq be able to look at it’s ecosystem and point out where the riba is?
The arbitrator, or refund agent makes payments in BTC to Bisq users that started a dispute. The arbitrator will be compensated in BSQ at the end of a Bisq cycle, and will buy BSQ to the burningman on a weekly base. As BSQ is more volatile and risky than BTC, it looks fair to pay something to the refund agent, who is willing to take that risk. That’s the interest, which at this time it looks like it’s 1% of the BTC payments advanced by refund agent.
Interest, neutral rate of. A uniform, originary rate of interest (see “Originary interest”) in certain inconceivable imaginary constructions which assume neutral money (q.v.). With a neutral rate of interest, the interest rate on loans would always coincide with the ratio between the prices of present goods and the prices of future goods, under the assumption that all prices change uniformly.
HA. 538,541-43.
Interest rate, entrepreneurial component. The component of the gross or market interest rate which reflects the uncertainty element due to the entrepreneurial speculation present in every loan. The entrepreneurial component varies in each instance in accordance with the peculiar circumstances pertaining to the specific deal.
AC. 85-86.
Really though, if wanting to sell it differently… various services like Zipmoney, Afterpay - where you can borrow proclaim “0% interest!” but have a $5 monthly fee instead. Haha, which really is what interest is - a fee on time, given ones time preference.
If that helps, by all means… but the concept of interest is universal and always present, regardless of what any culture has to say about it…
edit : Bisq doesn’t use “interest” mecanics, its hold the atomicity of the transaction that happen in Bitcoin. Meaning that you can’t re-spend a transaction held in a trade.