Monero
XMR#13XMR is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that hides senders, receivers and amounts by default.
- Market cap
- $10.16B
- Volume 24h
- $115.34M
- All-time high
- —
- Circulating supply
- 18.81M
Passes our 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: excessive uncertainty (gharar), usage, and benefit and harm (maslahah).
- 5 pass
- 3 caution
- 0 fail
Verdict history
- HalalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Monero?8 Shariah criteria
5 pass · 3 caution · 0 failHolding XMR earns nothing; the protocol pays only miners, with a small fixed block reward and fees, for proof-of-work.
Riba means interest, or any fixed increase on a loan. Monero has no staking, no treasury and no yield for holders: new coins go only to the miner who finds each block, as payment for proof-of-work, and no part of the reward goes to developers. Since May 2022 the reward has been a fixed tail emission of 0.6 XMR per block plus fees; the latest reward seen on 27 September 2026 was about 0.6085 XMR. Nothing in the protocol lends money or promises a return. Interest appears only in products built around XMR, such as exchange lending, which are assessed under trading mechanisms.
With no interest mechanism in the coin itself, the criterion gets the maximum score.
Monero is a working payments network with twelve years of history and a real function as private digital cash.
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. Monero clearly works: it has run since April 2014, has recorded about 64 million transactions, and XMR is needed to pay fees and is used as a medium of exchange. Islamic Finance Guru (IFG) rates Monero halal, as do Sharlife and CryptoUmmah. Tier-1 bodies disagree on whether cryptocurrency in general is property, but none names Monero or gives a reason specific to it, so the criterion gets the maximum score.
XMR is not a gambling token; the score is lowered a little because perpetual futures outweigh the main regulated spot markets.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through real exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and Monero has a real function as private digital cash with no chance-based payouts of its own. The score is lowered a little for one concrete fact: after Binance dropped XMR spot trading in 2024, its XMRUSDT perpetual futures stayed active, with about $29.6 million of 24-hour volume on 27 September 2026, against about $3.3 million on Kraken's XMR/USD spot market (CoinGecko put total reported volume at about $96.7 million).
Speculation in the market around the coin is not a gambling mechanism in the coin itself, so this stays a pass.
There is no issuer or treasury; miners are paid for securing the network, and development is funded by voluntary donations.
The revenue thresholds (below 5% from clearly impermissible sources, below 20% from disputed ones) apply to an issuer's or a protocol's economics. Monero has no issuing company, no premine and no protocol treasury, and no part of the block reward goes to development. The only income in the system is what miners earn, the tail emission plus transaction fees, which is payment for a service. Development is paid for by donations through the Community Crowdfunding System, where the community funds proposals and money is released as milestones are completed.
None of this income comes from interest, gambling or prohibited industries, so impermissible revenue is effectively 0%. How people use XMR is assessed separately under usage and maslahah. With no concrete problem in this income, the criterion gets the maximum score.
Supply rules and code are public and the launch was fair, but hidden amounts limit outside auditing and the 2025 Qubic episode showed that mining power can concentrate.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Much of Monero is transparent: the code is open source, the launch had no premine, and the emission rule is simple, a permanent 0.6 XMR per block since May 2022, adding under 1% a year to a supply of about 18.81 million XMR. Two points keep this at caution. First, because amounts are hidden by design, supply cannot be summed from the ledger the way Bitcoin's can; it is enforced by cryptographic proofs that ordinary users must trust.
Second, in August 2025 Qubic, an outside project, claimed over 51% of Monero's hashrate, and a six-block reorganisation with about 60 orphaned blocks followed. That showed payments can be reversed when one party controls most mining power; how concentrated mining is today was not measured here. The main developers are largely pseudonymous, and the FCMP++ privacy upgrade has no fork date yet.
Monero is built for private payments, a lawful purpose, but a notable and growing part of darknet trade uses it.
This criterion looks at what the asset is actually used for. Monero is designed as private digital cash: payments whose sender, receiver and amount are not exposed to the whole world, which is not impermissible in itself. The disputed side is large and documented: TRM Labs reports that in 2025 nearly half (48%) of newly launched darknet markets supported only Monero, and ransomware actors often ask for XMR. IFG rates Monero halal but does not hold it, citing criminal use as a precaution.
Nobody publishes a reliable share of illicit Monero activity, so without evidence that crime is the main use this is caution, not fail.
Fully paid spot XMR can be bought and held in your own wallet, though the regulated routes are shrinking.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. XMR can be bought spot, with full payment and delivery, on exchanges such as Kraken outside restricted regions (about $3.3 million of XMR/USD volume on 27 September 2026) and then withdrawn to a self-custody wallet, so ownership does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers.
The routes are much narrower than for most large coins: Binance dropped XMR in February 2024, Kraken stopped EEA trading on 31 October 2024, TRM cites reports of 73 delistings in 2025, platforms regulated in Dubai and the DIFC may not offer privacy tokens, and EU service providers must stop by 10 July 2027. No exchange-traded fund holds XMR. Spot ownership in a permissible form exists, so this is a pass; the score is lowered a little because lawful, licensed routes are closed in a growing number of places.
Monero offers real financial privacy, but it is a favoured tool of darknet markets and extortion, and regulators restrict it for that reason.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit is real: Monero protects people's wealth and personal financial data from public exposure and surveillance, keeps coins interchangeable, and lets individuals mine with ordinary computers; protecting privacy and property are values Islamic law also recognises. The harm is serious and widely documented. TRM Labs reports that 48% of darknet markets launched in 2025 accepted only Monero and that ransomware actors often demand it.
Regulators restrict it for money-laundering risk: Japan pushed exchanges to drop it in 2018, Dubai's VARA prohibits activities in anonymity-enhanced coins, the DIFC banned privacy tokens from January 2026, and the EU bars them from service providers from July 2027. Still, none of these sources shows that harm outweighs benefit overall: no one has measured what share of Monero use is illicit, and most ransoms are still paid in bitcoin. IFG rates Monero halal but does not hold it, citing criminal use as a precaution. Serious, disputed harm alongside real benefit is caution; a fail would need primary or reputable evidence that harm dominates.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying XMR with full payment and immediate delivery is still available on some exchanges, such as Kraken outside restricted regions, and coins can be moved to a self-custody wallet. Spot is acceptable for a HALAL-rated asset. Availability depends on where you live: many regulated platforms, including platforms licensed in Dubai and the DIFC and, from July 2027, EU providers, cannot offer XMR.
No exchange-traded fund holding XMR was found, so there is no fund structure to check. If one appears, it should be assessed like spot, with a separate check that it earns no interest and does not lend its XMR.
Monero is designed for payments, but tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI hold that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is not allowed in Indonesia and is banned in Turkey. Paying with a privacy coin can also conflict with anti-money-laundering rules in many countries.
Not available: Monero uses proof-of-work mining, so there is no native staking. Mining XMR yourself is payment for work and is not staking. Any product offering 'XMR staking' is a third-party structure whose source of return must be checked; none was reviewed.
Always fail: trading XMR with borrowed money and leverage is a deferred exchange without full delivery (AAOIFI SS 20).
XMR perpetual futures stay active on Binance even after its spot delisting (about $29.6 million of 24-hour volume on 27 September 2026), but futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending XMR for a return, through exchange lending or margin-funding programmes, pays the lender interest from borrowers. This is riba.
XMR itself pays holders nothing, so any yield product on XMR must get its return from somewhere else, usually lending or leveraged strategies, which is interest or interest-like. No XMR yield product paying for real network work was identified.
Scholars quotes
Because holding the token involves no exposure to prohibited elements and there are no problematic opt-in mechanisms, buying and holding XMR is considered Halal.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.Moreno will remain as Shariah as long as there is no Haram element proven.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.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
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