Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does GAL (migrated to Gravity - G) involve interest?
GAL/G's design does not rely on interest-bearing instruments; its economy runs on gas fees, product fees, and staking rewards tied to network usage. There is no evidence of lending pools, fixed-yield vaults, or interest-bearing treasury holdings in the retrieved sources. For Muslim investors, the revenue and reward mechanics themselves appear free of riba, though the broader tokenomics and centralization issues discussed elsewhere deserve separate scrutiny.
Assessment: Moderate Riba
Score: 65.9/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well GAL (migrated to Gravity - G) avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Gravity/Galxe's revenue derives from on-chain gas consumption and platform fees (Shop, Earn, Passport, Score), amounting to roughly $1.7M gross over two years, with only a small portion distributed to holders and the remainder retained by the treasury. No burn mechanism exists, and no source describes the treasury holding interest-bearing instruments, bonds, or lending positions. This fee-for-service model is consistent with permissible commercial activity rather than riba-based income. However, the lack of disclosure on treasury asset composition means investors cannot fully verify that idle treasury funds are not parked in interest-generating accounts, a gap worth noting.
Staking rewards on Gravity are explicitly described as a share of transaction fees plus platform-specific incentives — variable and dependent on real network activity rather than a fixed, guaranteed return. This structure resembles a profit-sharing or usage-based reward rather than a interest-bearing loan, which is the more permissible model under Islamic finance. Documentation notes a phased rollout, with earlier materials describing staking as forthcoming and later ones confirming a live staking portal. The absence of a fixed rate is reassuring, though the lack of detail on lock-up periods, cooldowns, and slashing conditions leaves the precise contractual nature of staking incompletely specified.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does GAL (migrated to Gravity - G) involve?
GAL/G carries a moderate degree of uncertainty, driven mostly by incomplete disclosure rather than by fraudulent or opaque design. Named founders, open-source code, and a documented migration process reduce ambiguity, while gaps in audit attribution and staking risk disclosures increase it. On balance, informational gharar here is a documentation problem, not evidence of deceptive intent.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 59.8/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
Galxe/Gravity is led by named, credentialed founders — Harry Zhang and Charles Wayn — with verifiable prior roles and academic backgrounds, appearing consistently across multiple listings. The GAL-to-G migration (burn-and-reissue, public portal, exchange coordination) is transparently documented on-chain and in project communications. The G token contract is open-source and available on GitHub. This level of identifiable leadership and public process materially reduces gharar relative to anonymous or unverifiable teams, though independent third-party confirmation of claims beyond the project's own disclosures remains limited in the available research.
An audit report is referenced for the G-token contract on GitHub, but no audit firm name or audit date is specified in the retrieved sources, and separately-listed firms such as Halborn, Trail of Bits, and Neodyme appear only as generic directory entries not tied to this project. This is a genuine gharar concern: an audit that cannot be attributed or dated is effectively unverifiable. Additionally, staking's lock-up duration, cooldown period, and slashing conditions for validators are not detailed anywhere in the documentation reviewed, leaving important risk parameters undisclosed to prospective stakers.
Maysir — Does GAL (migrated to Gravity - G) involve gambling or speculation?
G is not designed as a speculative or gambling instrument; it functions as gas, governance, staking collateral, and payment currency within a functioning product suite. Speculative trading can and does occur on secondary markets, as with virtually any listed token, but this is a function of market behavior rather than the token's design. The overall structure points toward genuine utility rather than maysir.
Assessment: Minor Maysir (Incidental)
Score: 70/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether GAL (migrated to Gravity - G) is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
Galxe operates a credential-data network (Quest, Passport, Score, Alva) claiming tens of millions of users, and Gravity is a functioning EVM-compatible Layer-1 with restaking support via EigenLayer and Babylon. G is consumed as gas for real transactions and as payment across Galxe's product suite, generating measurable, if modest, revenue (~$1.7M gross over two years) from actual usage rather than from zero-sum wagering. This productive, fee-generating utility — comparable to paying for infrastructure services — is what distinguishes G from a purely speculative or gambling-style instrument.
Against this genuine utility must be weighed the token's history: GAL originated via a Binance Launchpool sale with seed, strategic, and team allocations rather than a fair launch, and 60.27% of migrated supply was unlocked immediately at the Gravity TGE, creating concentrated liquid supply capable of feeding short-term speculative trading. Such concentration and unlock dynamics can amplify volatility and speculative behavior in secondary markets, independent of the protocol's own productive design. This tension between real utility and speculative trading patterns is the basis for a cautious stance for most investors.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 78/100 | Co-founders Harry Zhang and Charles Wayn are named with verifiable education and prior startup history repeated consistently across sources. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 60/100 | No fraud, hack, or rug-pull evidence found for this specific project, and the token migration was executed transparently via DAO vote, but this is inferred from absence of negative reports rather than a positive third-party clearance. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 78/100 | Galxe is described as a functioning web3 credential/identity platform with millions of users and multiple live products (Quest, Passport, Score, Alva). |
| Ethical Practices | 82/100 | Nothing in the sources indicates the protocol's own design targets a prohibited industry; it is presented as identity/credential and blockchain infrastructure. |
Summary: Galxe/Gravity has a named, credentialed founding team and a transparently documented token migration, with no fraud or regulatory findings against the project itself in the retrieved sources.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 82/100 | The base protocol combines a credential-data network and a general-purpose EVM L1, neither of which is a prohibited sector per the sources. |
| Transaction Fees | 58/100 | Transaction fees are collected in G, with only a small share distributed to holders and most retained by the treasury, with no burn mechanism, per protocol revenue tracking. |
| Treasury Assets | 45/100 (low evidence) | Sources do not disclose whether treasury holdings include interest-bearing instruments, leaving this criterion unaddressed. |
| Revenue Model | 78/100 | Revenue comes from gas and application fees rather than any interest-based lending activity described in the sources. |
| Transparency | 75/100 | The G-token contract is open-source on GitHub with public docs and an audit report link, and governance proposals (GP-25/GP-30) are publicly documented. |
| Governance | 55/100 | On-chain G DAO governance exists, but the contract owner is a Safe multi-sig and the Foundation holds the largest single allocation, indicating real centralization. |
| Launch Fairness | 52/100 | GAL launched through a Binance Launchpool sale alongside seed and strategic sale rounds and team allocations, which is not a fully fair/no-insider launch. |
| Token Distribution | 50/100 | Distribution data shows broad categories (community, team, treasury, backers) but also a large Foundation-controlled share unlocked immediately at migration. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 60/100 | Documented utility (gas, governance, staking, payments) is substantial, but current trading/usage data for the legacy GAL contract is thin, making the speculation/utility balance hard to verify precisely. |
Summary: The base protocol combines a credential-data network and an EVM Layer-1 with open-source contracts and on-chain DAO governance, but token control shows notable centralisation through Foundation allocations and a multi-sig contract owner.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 78/100 | Protocol revenue is sourced from transaction and product fees, not interest-based lending, per the revenue-tracking source. |
| Financial Status | 55/100 | On-chain revenue and supply figures are transparent but show a relatively small and fluctuating revenue base for the protocol. |
| Interest Assessment | 80/100 | No lending, borrowing, or interest mechanism is described at the protocol level; G's utility is limited to gas, staking, governance and payments. |
| Audit Quality | 38/100 | An audit report is referenced for the G-token contract on GitHub, but no auditing firm name or audit date is given in the retrieved sources, so audit quality cannot be verified. |
Summary: Revenue comes from gas and application fees rather than interest-based activity, financials are transparently tracked on-chain but modest in scale, and no named, dated third-party audit of the G-token contract could be confirmed from these sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 78/100 | G functions as a utility token for gas, governance, staking, and application payments across two ecosystems. |
| Governance Rights | 68/100 | Holders can vote through the on-chain G DAO on upgrades and fund allocations, though large Foundation and insider allocations may dilute practical decentralisation. |
| Rewards Distribution | 68/100 | Staking rewards are described as a variable share of transaction fees plus ecosystem incentives, not a fixed guaranteed rate. |
| Speculation Controls | 50/100 | Multi-year vesting and cliffs apply to team/backer allocations, but a large 60%+ share of supply was unlocked immediately at the GAL-to-G migration, undermining anti-speculation intent. |
| Asset Backing | 62/100 | The token's value rests on described utility (gas/governance/staking) rather than any hard-asset backing, which the sources support only indirectly. |
Summary: G is a genuine utility and governance token with variable, activity-linked rewards, though a large immediate token unlock at migration weakens its anti-speculation design.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 58/100 | Staking is delegation-based to validators via non-custodial wallets, but lock-up and cooldown terms are not detailed in the sources. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 40/100 (low evidence) | No source classifies the staking reward mechanism under any Islamic contract structure (e.g., Wakalah/Mudarabah), leaving this an open question. |
| Rewards Structure | 68/100 | Rewards are tied to a share of real transaction-fee activity rather than a fixed/guaranteed payout, per the documentation. |
| Documentation | 48/100 | General staking documentation exists (Gravity docs, litepaper) but specific risk disclosures such as slashing conditions or lock-up periods are not found in the retrieved sources. |
| Shariah Alignment | 48/100 | Variable, activity-based rewards reduce some gharar, but the absence of an explicit Islamic-contract classification and undisclosed slashing/lock-up terms leave a core question unresolved. |
Summary: A native delegation-based staking mechanism exists with fee-based variable rewards, but key details such as lock-up periods, slashing, and Islamic contract classification are not disclosed in the sources.
Overall Assessment: This is a genuine, non-meme infrastructure project with reasonable transparency and real utility, but unresolved audit-firm identification, treasury composition, staking documentation, and token-concentration issues leave several Shariah-relevant questions only partially answered.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar