Per-asset classification, argued from the fiqh side: the Abu Jib & Hashem 2019 Fiqh Academy taxonomy (source review)

[eaitbrahim]

(This post summarizes a full source review merged today — eleven sources: a 10-post money-management series on the keeks library, Fortune's Formula (Poundstone), and the paper below. This category gets the classification half; the sizing half is summarized at the end and documented in full in the review.)

The fiqh source

أنواع المعاملات الرقمية المشفرة — "Types of Encrypted Digital Transactions" (Dr. Mu'taz Abu Jib & Prof. Ashraf Hashem, ARSI), a research paper prepared for the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (Jeddah) Seminar on Electronic Transactions, 9-11 September 2019.

The paper's core work is a taxonomy: mined first-generation currencies (Bitcoin and kin), utility tokens, security/equity tokens, protocol/platform tokens, asset-backed types — classified further by chain type (public/private), issuing authority, and backing. Its central conclusion, verbatim in substance:

The term "digital currencies" covers a wide spectrum of disparate instruments, differing in goals, uses, issuance method, and backing. The newer types are not necessarily similar in structure, characteristics, and substance, and demand further detailed Shariah study. Before issuing any ruling on these assets, one must first define the asset in question precisely and comprehensively (تعريفاً دقيقاً جامعاً مانعاً).

And its two recommendations: (1) a standing committee of jurists, Shariah researchers, and fintech-literate economists should study each type and rule per type; (2) AAOIFI and the IFSB should issue Shariah standards for these assets, analogous to existing standards for tangible and intangible assets.

Why this matters to keel

keel is an enforcement engine for rulings you supply — it never derives a Shariah classification from market data. An operator records one per (venue, product) with an attributed human source (keel assets attest), and keel enforces it deterministically; an absent attestation is a rejection, not a default pass (fiqh-basis).

The paper's demand — define each instrument precisely, per type, through qualified attribution, before ruling — is that architecture argued from the fiqh side. It also sharpens two operating points for keel's users:

1. A classification for "BTC-USD spot on Coinbase" is not automatically a classification for anything else — not other products, not other instrument shapes (a wrapped or staked form is a different instrument), not other venues' terms. The paper's taxonomy is a checklist of exactly the dimensions an attestation should speak to.
2. The right sources to cite are being named by the paper itself: AAOIFI/IFSB standards as they issue, academy seminar resolutions, or a qualified scholar's attributed position. keel's reading list will record them as they arrive; when a real standard issues, it becomes the natural attributed source for allowlist attestations.

What the paper is not: a permissibility ruling. It is a taxonomy and method paper — it supports the framing of attestations, it cannot stand as one. And the standing caveats hold: no scholarly review of keel's fiqh basis has occurred; keel is not a fatwa engine; each operator owns their attestations.

The discussion this category exists for

Two questions we'd genuinely like challenged:

• Granularity: is per-(venue, product) the right grain for recorded classifications — or should instrument type (spot vs wrapped vs staked vs tokenized claim) be a first-class recorded dimension alongside it, the way the paper's taxonomy implies?
• Sources: which bodies' outputs should an operator treat as authoritative for crypto-asset classifications today — and how should an attestation record which position of a body it follows when they differ?

The money-management half, in one paragraph

Run on keel's measured edges (no shipped rule family is net-positive at the venue's taker fee), every Kelly variant in the reviewed literature says bet zero — which is what keel already does: no live trading without a proven edge. The review's adoptions are instrumentation around that posture (a report-only Kelly diagnostic for promotion output; a quarter-Kelly live-path ceiling spec'd for whenever a rule first clears the gate; a drawdown-throttled-sizing paper experiment through the trials ledger; CPPI vocabulary for the drawdown breaker) — plus explicit, reasoned rejections of Optimal-f, streak-driven sizing, and a Merton risk-aversion knob. Full findings and formulas: the review document.