Hey everyone, I recently was introduced to Steem by a friend and overall, it seems like a really awesome idea to put the power in the hands of the content creators and make social media more beneficial to the users rather than the fat cats up top. It also seems that, for the most part, the users here aren't as wankerish as sites like Reddit, which is great. Overall, I love the place and look forward to spending a good deal of my free time here. However, while trying to learn how the hell the site actually works, I noticed that Steem dollars accrue 10% interest, which poses a bit of a problem for me as a Muslim. We believe that taking interest payments and paying interest to others is impermissible (and even from a secular point of view one can appreciate the damage usury does to society). Is there any way to use Steemit without getting interest payments? If I only get rewarded with Steem power, will that keep me free from interest?
That's what most of us have found out. (Though there may be some rotten apples here too.)
I would not be too worried about that. Interest on whatever on Steem is not equivalent to usury I'm sure. After all, when it's all decided on consensus of Steem witnesses, and because it is paid on deposited funds, it is likely not going to hurt those who use Steem.
Anyway, if you don't like gathering interest, don't keep SBD on your account, switch it to other cryptocurrencies as you get paid.
On the other hand, if you have any cryptocurrency (Steem, Bitcoin, Ether), the rising price inevitably means you will get an interest on your original investment whether you want it or not.
Usury is an entirely different thing. If I loan something to a friend, I don't personally expect an interest, but if someone wants to pay back extra, I'm not turning it down. I do however think unfairly collecting excessive interest rates on loans is bad for everyone and unethical behavior to say the least.
I think there's a difference between interest earned through a loan, where you loan somebody $100 and they have to pay back a certain amount in principal every month plus a percentage of what they haven't yet paid, which is clearly forbidden in Islam, and capital gains made from investment. The way I see it, a cryptocurrency is a commodity like any other, and it is absolutely fine to buy some because you believe the value will increase. If buying cryptocurrency was wrong for that reason, buying gold would be equally forbidden. Thanks for the help though!
The steem dollars have been earning 0% interest for quite a while now. You can't avoid receiving SBD for comments, but if ypu are worried, or if the interest rate becomes nonzero again, you can just immediately convert those steem dollars to steem power.
Oh great, that makes it simple! When would interest payments get made? Is it on a monthly basis? Or do you have to be pretty vigilant to transfer your funds into steem power asap?
I'm not positive, usually they are made once you make a transaction, but it's been a long time since I have received interest since the rate has been zero for so long. Also, I'm not intimately familiar with Muslim culture, but I think the INTENTION of the rule against interest would not include these types of payments. They are really just called interest, because it's easier to understand it in terms of rate of return when the interest rate is nonzero, but no one is actually paying you interest. It is more like mining cryptocurrency with proof of stake in a sense. All of the SBD "interest" that you earn is newly created from that days reward pool and a portion of it is given to reward those who hold steem dollars. Trust me, my friend, there is no usury about this process and you are not taking money from any other person, it is part of the reward mechanism, and it was called interest because it's easier to understand it that way.
Ah, thanks for that. I was a bit confused because if I was receiving interest from it, I wasn't entirely sure who I would be loaning it to. It sounds to me more like dividends from owning shares than interest earned off a loan. I'll have to do more reading!