Pi
PI#67PI is the coin of Pi Network, a mobile-first blockchain where it is earned by tapping in an app and moved to Mainnet after identity checks.
- Market cap
- $1B
- Volume 24h
- $6.86M
- All-time high
- —
- Circulating supply
- 11.24B of 100B
Passes our 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: excessive uncertainty (gharar) and benefit and harm (maslahah).
- 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 Pi?8 Shariah criteria
6 pass · 2 caution · 0 failHolding PI pays nothing and the protocol lends nothing, but the optional lockup reward pays more new PI to those who lock more PI for longer.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. Simply holding PI earns nothing, and PI is not lent to borrowers by the protocol. New PI is issued as 'mining' rewards to users who check in daily in the mobile app, with the rate adjusted to a yearly supply cap; this is an issuance rule, not a return on a loan. The Mainnet formula adds an optional Lockup Reward whose size depends on how long and how much of one's balance is locked, which resembles a return on locked capital, though it is paid from new issuance, not from a borrower.
That concrete feature keeps the score below the maximum, but it is not interest on a loan, so the criterion stays in pass, consistent with Sharlife's compliant rating and ShariaQuant's view of the rewards as rule-based emissions.
PI runs on a live Mainnet with in-app uses, though its real-world utility is still thin.
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. PI has a working Mainnet since December 2021, opened to outside exchanges on 20 February 2025, and can be spent in Pi Browser apps and for App Studio app creation, so it is more than an empty record. Its utility is still thin: Hanoi police said in March 2025 that Pi currently lacks real-world applications and its valuation is self-determined, which keeps the score below the maximum.
Critics describe the referral model as pyramid-like; however, joining is free and no money passes from new users to earlier ones, so it does not match the definition of a Ponzi scheme, and no primary regulator finding of a pyramid was located. Sharlife, the authoritative source for Pi, lists it as Shariah-compliant without published reasons. The general disagreement among scholarly bodies on whether cryptocurrency is property is reflected in confidence, not in this score.
PI has no gambling mechanics, though its exchange trading is dominated by perpetual futures.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and PI has no lottery or betting mechanics, while it has a real, if small, in-app function. The market around it is heavily speculative, though: in 24-hour tickers on 27 September 2026, perpetual futures were about two-thirds of PI volume on OKX and Bitget (about 60.8 million PI in perpetuals against 29.1 million on spot; a single-day snapshot). That concrete pattern lowers the score within pass; derivatives themselves are assessed under trading mechanisms.
The Core Team's known income lines are service and advertising fees; no interest or gambling revenue was found.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns, and whether any of that income is impermissible. Pi has a clear operator: the Core Team runs the mining app, KYC, the Pi Browser and App Studio, holds a 20 billion PI allocation, and oversees a 10 billion PI Foundation reserve and 5 billion for liquidity. Its known income lines, App Studio fees paid in Pi and, per ShariaQuant, the Pi Ad Network, are service and advertising fees, and no interest or gambling revenue was found, so the criterion is at the maximum.
Pi Network Ventures invests in outside companies, such as OpenMind in October 2025, but its funding and portfolio are not disclosed; that stays a data gap.
The supply cap and allocation are published, but media analysis links most of the supply to the Core Team, the team decides through KYC whose balances count, few validators were reported and the node code was not found in public.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Some things are disclosed: a 100 billion PI cap and a 65/10/5/20 allocation are in the whitepaper. Much else is not verifiable. The Core Team's 20 billion unlocks 'at the same pace' as community mining under a self-imposed mandate, not a published on-chain schedule. Mined balances only become Mainnet PI after the team's own KYC, and the whitepaper says balances of fake or duplicate users will be discarded; in September 2026 hundreds of thousands of accounts were still blocked in that process.
Media analysis of PiScan data in March 2025 found about 82.8 billion PI in wallets linked to the team, and reported only three active consensus validators. The GitHub repository linked on CoinGecko (pi-apps/pi-platform-docs) holds SDK documentation, not node code, and no public node source repository was found. Because the allocation itself is disclosed, this is placed at the bottom of caution rather than fail, but the opacity is serious. Sharlife's compliant rating does not address these coin-specific disclosure gaps, so this criterion stays at caution.
PI is used for in-app payments and app building, with no sign of interest-based or gambling use, though real-world use is small.
This criterion looks at what the network is actually used for. The intended uses are permissible: paying for goods and services in Pi Browser apps, paying for app creation in Pi App Studio, and staking PI on apps in the Ecosystem Directory. No interest-based lending market or gambling platform was found as a major use of the network. The scale of real use is not published and Hanoi police said in March 2025 that Pi lacked real-world applications, so the score sits below the maximum, but no impermissible use was found.
Fully paid spot PI is available on OKX and Bitget and can be held in the Pi Wallet, though large exchanges such as Binance and Bybit do not list it.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. PI trades spot, with full payment and delivery, on exchanges such as OKX and Bitget, and KYC-verified users can hold it in the Pi Wallet on Mainnet. Ownership does not depend on derivatives. Binance and Bybit do not list PI, and users who mined PI can only move it after the Core Team's KYC and migration, a concrete restriction on control of mined coins that keeps the score slightly below the maximum.
Pi brought tens of millions of people into crypto for free, but fake apps, scams and a long, opaque KYC process have caused real harm.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit: joining is free, and about 18 million people passed KYC, giving many first-time users a wallet and small in-app payments. The harm is significant. Hanoi police warned in March 2025 that fake Pi apps were used to collect user data and defraud users, and the Core Team itself warns that dealing with unlisted third-party services risks scams or fraud. Millions of users handed identity documents to the project, and hundreds of thousands still had balances blocked in September 2026.
Reports also say Malaysia's Securities Commission and the Philippine central bank raised concerns in 2025, but primary documents were not located. These are concrete harms, so the criterion stays at caution despite Sharlife's compliant rating. Speculative losses are counted under maysir, not again here.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying PI with full payment and immediate delivery is available on OKX and Bitget, and coins can be withdrawn to the Pi Wallet by KYC-verified users. Spot ownership is acceptable for an asset rated HALAL.
No exchange-traded fund holding PI was found. If one appears, it would be assessed like spot, with its structure (interest income, lending of the underlying) checked separately.
Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is banned in Turkey and not allowed in Indonesia. In Vietnam, Hanoi police warned in March 2025 that paying with Pi can bring fines or prosecution. In-app payments inside the Pi ecosystem remain subject to these rules.
PI has no proof-of-stake validation reward. The Mainnet 'Lockup Reward' pays higher mining rewards to users who lock more PI for longer, which resembles a return on locked capital rather than payment for validation work; it is paid from new issuance, not from a borrower, but it is not a reward for work, so it is caution. Ecosystem Directory staking, where users stake PI on apps, was not shown to pay a return; its terms were not verified.
Margin trading in PI is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
PI perpetual futures on OKX and Bitget were about two-thirds of PI volume on those exchanges on 27 September 2026. Futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending PI through exchange earn or loan programmes for a fixed or guaranteed return is riba and fails. No major on-chain lending market for PI was found.
Exchange yield products on PI that pay interest from lending or a guaranteed rate fail. The protocol's own lockup reward is assessed under staking above; any product's source of return must be checked case by case.
Scholars quotes
Therefore, simply buying and holding PI is 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.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
Section in preparation
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