Arbitrum
ARB#58ARB is the governance token of Arbitrum, a network that makes Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper.
- Market cap
- $1.34B
- Volume 24h
- $208.61M
- All-time high
- —
- Circulating supply
- 6.79B of 10B
Passes our 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: business model and excessive uncertainty (gharar).
- 6 pass
- 2 caution
- 0 fail
Verdict history
- HalalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Arbitrum?8 Shariah criteria
6 pass · 2 caution · 0 failHolding ARB pays nothing and the token has no built-in reward; the DAO's Treasury-fund income stays in the treasury and is not paid to holders.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. ARB is a governance token: holders vote, or delegate their votes, on proposals. The governance docs describe no reward paid to holders, and network fees are paid in ETH, not ARB. The DAO treasury does earn interest-like income: through its Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP) it has put over $45 million into tokenised US Treasury funds, earning nearly $700,000 in the first phase alone. That income stays in the DAO treasury; it is not distributed to ARB holders, so holding ARB does not itself give the holder interest.
How the treasury earns is judged under the business model criterion. Some ARB holders lend their tokens on lending protocols; that is a way of using ARB, assessed under trading mechanisms, not a feature of the token. With no interest reaching holders, the criterion gets the maximum score; Islamic Finance Guru, the first-priority authoritative source, rates ARB permissible.
Arbitrum is a busy working network and ARB carries a real governance right, though that is its only function.
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. The network behind ARB clearly works: Arbitrum One has processed about 2.7 billion transactions, and L2BEAT shows about $11.8 billion of value secured on it. ARB's value comes from governance: the right to vote on upgrades, the treasury and Security Council elections.
Islamic Finance Guru rates ARB permissible; the score is lowered within pass for a concrete limit: ARB is not needed to use the network, because gas is paid in ETH, so its utility is narrower than a coin that pays for the network's services. The general disagreement among tier-1 bodies about cryptocurrency (Malaysia's SC versus Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, Turkey's Diyanet, the UAE GAIAE and Indonesia's MUI; none names ARB) is reflected in confidence, not in this score.
ARB is not a gambling token and has a real governance function, though its trading is dominated by futures.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and ARB has no chance-based payout. The market around it is heavily speculative, though. On 27 September 2026 perpetual futures made up about 85% of ARB/USDT volume on Binance, Bybit and OKX combined (about $282 million of futures against about $50 million of spot over 24 hours; a single-day snapshot). ARB traded around $0.23, about 90% below its January 2024 high of $2.39, while scheduled unlocks kept adding supply.
ARB still has a real governance function, so it is not built for gambling and the status is pass; the concrete futures dominance lowers the score within the band.
The DAO earns mostly service fees, but part of its income comes from tokenised US Treasury funds, and no breakdown is published to test the 5% threshold.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns. ArbitrumDAO earned $6.19 million in the first half of 2026 from four sources: Arbitrum One transaction fees, Timeboost (an auction for a fast lane to order transactions), licence fees from chains built under the Arbitrum Expansion Program such as Robinhood Chain, and treasury income. The first three are fees for services. Selling transaction ordering is disputed by some as monetising MEV, though it is disclosed.
Treasury income is the concern: the DAO has invested over $45 million in tokenised US Treasury funds through STEP, which is interest income. The Foundation does not break income down by source, so the share from interest cannot be checked against the 5% threshold. It could be material: the first STEP phase, launched in July 2024, had earned nearly $700,000 by May 2025, while total income was $6.19 million in the first half of 2026. Islamic Finance Guru rates ARB permissible, but interest income is shown to exist while its share is unknown, so under the threshold rule this criterion stays at caution; a fail would need the breakdown.
Supply, vesting and governance rules are public, but a 12-member Security Council can upgrade contracts instantly and the sequencer is run by one organisation.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Much is transparent: ARB's 10 billion supply, its allocation, the vesting schedule and the 2% yearly issuance cap are published, and the Foundation reports that about 92% of supply was unlocked or held by the DAO in August 2026, with the last 7.7% vesting by March 2027. Governance rules are set out in the Constitution. Two points leave real uncertainty.
First, the Security Council can act with 9 of 12 signatures and make emergency upgrades immediately; L2BEAT warns that funds could be stolen through a malicious upgrade, and ShariaQuant rates ARB doubtful for this reason. Second, the Arbitrum Foundation runs the only sequencer, and since August 2026 Offchain Labs can adjust the minimum fee within a DAO-approved range. In 2023 the Foundation also received its tokens before the DAO approved them, which led to a lockup under AIP-1.1. Islamic Finance Guru rates ARB permissible, but these instant-upgrade and single-sequencer powers are concrete, sourced risks to holders, so the status stays caution.
Arbitrum is general infrastructure; interest-based lending and perpetual futures are a large share of its DeFi activity, but not its main purpose.
This criterion looks at what the network is actually used for. Arbitrum is general-purpose infrastructure for cheaper Ethereum transactions, and chains such as Robinhood Chain are built on its technology. A large part of its DeFi activity is disputed or impermissible, though. By Liberandum's sum of DefiLlama protocol data on 27 September 2026, lending protocols held about $0.82 billion, roughly a third of about $2.4 billion of DeFi deposits outside bridges, with Aave V3 alone at about $0.54 billion.
Derivatives protocols such as GMX held about 14%, and the largest single balance on the network, about $0.57 billion, is the bridge into the Hyperliquid perpetual futures exchange. These are notable shares, but the network is not shown to exist mainly for them, so the status is pass at the bottom of the band. The breakdown comes only from a secondary aggregator.
Fully paid spot ARB is widely available and can be held in one's own wallet.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. ARB trades spot, with full payment and delivery, on major exchanges such as Binance, Bybit and OKX. It is a token on Arbitrum One, with a bridged version on Ethereum, so it can be withdrawn to a self-custody wallet that the owner controls. Ownership therefore does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers, even though most trading volume is in futures. No concrete problem with permissible ownership is shown, so the criterion gets the maximum score.
Arbitrum makes Ethereum cheaper to use and hosts real applications; no large harm specific to ARB was found.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit is real: Arbitrum lowers the cost of using Ethereum, has processed about 2.7 billion transactions, and its technology now runs other chains, including Robinhood Chain, launched on 1 July 2026. ARB lets a broad group of holders govern this infrastructure and its treasury. No study found links ARB or Arbitrum specifically to fraud, sanctions evasion or exploitation at scale. The main harms are speculative trading and interest-based use on the network, which are counted under maysir and usage, not again here.
With no concrete harm specific to ARB, the criterion gets the maximum score.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying ARB with full payment and immediate delivery is widely available on major exchanges, and tokens can be moved to a self-custody wallet. Spot is acceptable for a HALAL-rated asset.
No spot ARB exchange-traded fund holding the token was identified in this review. Any fund offered later must be checked separately for lending of the token and interest income.
ARB is a governance token and is not used as a means of payment in practice; network fees are paid in ETH. Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible.
ARB has no native staking: the network does not use ARB to validate blocks, and the governance docs describe no reward for holders. Products advertised as 'ARB staking' by exchanges or third parties pay from other sources, which must be checked product by product; delegating votes to a governance delegate earns nothing.
Margin trading in ARB is widely offered but is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
ARB perpetual futures make up most of its trading volume, but futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending ARB on protocols such as Aave or through exchange lending programmes pays depositors interest from borrowers. This is riba.
ARB yield products built on lending, leverage or basis trading pay interest or interest-like returns and fail. Since ARB has no network reward of its own, a product promising yield on ARB has to take it from somewhere else, so its source must be checked.
Scholars quotes
The opinion on this is the same as doing the same with any halal assets such as shares – 1) is permissible, 2) is more debatable and there are differing opinions on short-term trading.As of now, the Arbitrum project doesn't appear to directly assist activities that violate Islamic law.As I mentioned at the beginning of this article it is not necessary to substantiate the permissibility of something as long as there are no prohibited factors involved in it or surrounding it.Penggunaan cryptocurrency sebagai mata uang hukumnya haram, karena mengandung gharar (ketidakjelasan), dharar (bahaya) dan bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang nomor 7 tahun 2011 tentang Mata Uang dan Peraturan Bank Indonesia nomor 17 tahun 2015 tentang Kewajiban Penggunaan Rupiah di Wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.Sebagaimana mata wang yang lain, mata wang digital hendaklah tidak digunakan sebagai bayaran kepada barangan, perkhidmatan dan aktiviti tidak patuh Syariah seperti pembelian dadah, pelacuran, perjudian dan pendanaan aktiviti keganasan serta penggubahan wang haram.The SAC has also resolved that investment and trading of Digital Assets that fulfil the above requirements and which are traded on Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) registered with SC are permissible.Third: In light of the above and given the significant risks associated with this type of currencies and the instability of their transactions, the Council of the Academy recommends pursuing research and studies on issues affecting its ruling.Bitcoin is a digital currency that does not meet the legal and Sharia criteria that make it a currency subject to the rulings of dealing with official legal currencies recognized internationally.بناءً على ذلك: فلا يجوز شرعًا تداول عملة "البتكوين" والتعامل من خلالها بالبيعِ والشراءِ والإجارةِ وغيرها، بل يُمنع من الاشتراكِ فيها؛ لعدمِ اعتبارِها كوسيطٍ مقبولٍ للتبادلِ من الجهاتِ المخُتصَّةِ، ولِمَا تشتمل عليه من الضررِ الناشئ عن الغررِ والجهالةِ والغشِّ في مَصْرِفها ومِعْيارها وقِيمتها، فضلًا عما تؤدي إليه ممارستُها من مخاطرَ عاليةٍ على الأفراد والدول.The Shariah ruling on simply buying and holding $ARB is Doubtful.According to research and opinion of experts so far, cryptocurrency is not considered ‘ maal ’ (wealth) in Sharia.Muhammadiyah memandang transaksi dan investasi kripto pada dasarnya mubah (boleh) tetapi dengan syarat tertentu.Our current position is 'tawaquf'; we can't say it is halal or haram, but we say it is better not to engage in itAI-assisted analysis checked against sources. Not a fatwa or investment advice.
Where it trades
Section in preparation
Similar halal assets
Halal verdict, same category
