Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does HashPack involve interest?
HashPack itself does not lend or borrow, and its core wallet function generates no interest income. However, its PACK token ecosystem includes a fixed-rate staking product that raises a genuine riba concern. Muslim investors should treat the wallet and the token as separable: the former is largely clean, the latter carries an unresolved interest-like feature.
Assessment: Riba Dominant
Score: 48.5/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well HashPack avoids interest-based mechanisms.
HashPack's company revenue derives from swap fees and wallet activity, a portion of which funds PackBack rebates and PACK buybacks — not from interest-bearing loans, margin lending, or debt instruments. Hedera's own network-level transaction fees are split among nodes, treasury, and staking accounts, but this is Hedera's protocol design, not HashPack extracting riba-based income directly. No sources indicate HashPack holds interest-bearing reserves or engages in conventional lending. This part of the business model appears reasonably free of direct riba exposure, though the buyback mechanism funding token rewards deserves scrutiny given its role in staking payouts.
PACK's staking mechanism converts tokens into xPACK, which accrues value against PACK at a fixed 5% APR, explicitly stated to remain unchanged "for the foreseeable few years" with no way to increase it. This fixed, guaranteed return — independent of actual protocol profit or performance — resembles a debt-like interest payment more than a Mudarabah profit-share, where returns should fluctuate with real economic outcomes. Compounding the concern, reward funding is not clearly disclosed as profit distribution; it appears sourced from treasury and buyback funds rather than genuine revenue-sharing, leaving the classification of these rewards as an open, unresolved riba concern.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does HashPack involve?
HashPack carries moderate uncertainty: the team and business are well-documented, but token-specific contract audits and reward-funding mechanics remain unclear. Strong founder transparency reduces gharar, while thin disclosure around PACK's vesting and staking contracts increases it. On balance, informational uncertainty here is manageable but not negligible.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 53.3/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
HashPack's founders are named and verifiable: CEO May Chan, Tyler Coté, Jacob D'Rozario, and Nicholas Hanna, with Chan's background in Hedera standards work (HIP-412) independently traceable. The company is registered in Wyoming, and public metrics — over 1 million accounts, $1 billion-plus in wallet-held assets, and dominant Hedera market share — support legitimacy. Documentation exists via whitepaper, litepaper, and docs site. This level of named, checkable identity substantially reduces gharar relative to anonymous or unverifiable projects, though explicit open-source licensing status for the codebase is not confirmed in available sources.
Quantstamp audited the HashPack wallet, identifying one severe and four medium issues that were subsequently remediated, with ongoing static analysis via SonarCloud and Dependabot. However, no named audit specifically covers the PACK token's smart contracts, vesting mechanism, or staking (xPACK) logic in the sources reviewed. This absence of dedicated token-contract auditing is a real gharar concern that should be named plainly: users staking PACK or relying on multisig-controlled vesting are trusting unaudited (or at least undisclosed-audit) contract logic, even though the wallet infrastructure itself has undergone third-party review.
Maysir — Does HashPack involve gambling or speculation?
HashPack is not designed as a gambling mechanism; it functions as productive wallet infrastructure with a loyalty token layered on top. Genuine utility and real adoption metrics distinguish it from purely speculative instruments, though secondary-market trading of PACK can still attract speculative behavior beyond the protocol's control. The core design leans toward utility rather than chance-based wagering.
Assessment: Moderate Maysir (High Risk)
Score: 59.5/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether HashPack is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
HashPack provides real, non-custodial access to the Hedera network for DeFi, NFTs, and dApp connectivity through HashConnect, serving reportedly over 90% of Hedera's monthly active wallet users and holding over $1 billion in user assets. PACK rewards genuine in-wallet activity — swaps and Secure Trade usage — and can be redeemed for exclusive in-app store items, functioning as a loyalty mechanism tied to actual usage rather than chance outcomes. This productive utility, serving real transactional demand, distinguishes HashPack's design from maysir-style products built solely around wagering or zero-sum speculation.
Anti-speculation design choices — six-year linear vesting, a one-year liquidity lock, and treasury-funded buybacks — suggest deliberate efforts to dampen short-term speculative trading in PACK. That said, genesis allocation favored NFT holders and early supporters over a fully open, fair launch, and like any exchange-listed token, PACK remains exposed to speculative trading in secondary markets that the protocol itself does not control or endorse. Such third-party speculative behavior does not reflect a flaw in HashPack's own design, but it is a factual market reality worth noting alongside its genuine utility case.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 85/100 | Four co-founders including CEO May Chan are publicly named, LinkedIn-verified, and traceable with a registered company address. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 65/100 | No rug-pull or protocol-level fraud found; reported scams are third-party phishing against users, and a legal dispute exists but isn't a fraud finding against HashPack. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 85/100 | HashPack is the dominant, actively used gateway wallet on Hedera with clear real-world utility (DeFi, NFTs, dApp access). |
| Ethical Practices | 80/100 | Nothing in the sources ties HashPack's own design to a haram industry; the wallet is a neutral infrastructure tool. |
Summary: HashPack has a publicly named, traceable founding team and a genuine, widely-adopted wallet product, with security incidents traced to user-side phishing rather than protocol fraud.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 85/100 | The base business is a non-custodial wallet/gateway service, not a prohibited sector. |
| Transaction Fees | 70/100 | Fees described are standard Hedera network fees split among nodes/treasury/staking, not an interest-like extraction by HashPack itself. |
| Treasury Assets | 45/100 (low evidence) | No source details the composition of HashPack's treasury holdings (e.g., whether interest-bearing instruments are held). |
| Revenue Model | 65/100 | Revenue appears tied to swap-fee rebates and buybacks rather than lending/interest, but the full revenue model is not fully disclosed. |
| Transparency | 80/100 | Whitepaper, litepaper, and docs are public, and vesting contract addresses are published on-chain. |
| Governance | 40/100 | Governance is currently centralized in HashPack-controlled multisigs, with holder governance described only as a future intention. |
| Launch Fairness | 45/100 | Genesis allocation was gated to NFT Concierge Collection holders and insiders, not an open fair launch, with 80% locked under team control. |
| Token Distribution | 35/100 | Only 20% of supply circulated at genesis while 80% remains in HashPack-managed multisig vesting contracts over six years. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 55/100 | The token has real in-wallet utility but also functions as an exchange-traded speculative asset supported by buybacks. |
Summary: HashPack operates a legitimate non-custodial wallet/gateway on Hedera, but PACK's launch and ongoing governance remain concentrated in team-controlled multisigs with a gated, non-fully-open genesis distribution.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 70/100 | Disclosed revenue sources (swap-fee rebates) are not interest-based, though the full revenue picture is incomplete. |
| Financial Status | 55/100 | HashPack the company shows strong adoption metrics, but PACK token-specific financial stability data is not provided. |
| Interest Assessment | 40/100 | The wallet itself offers no lending/borrowing, but its native staking pays a fixed guaranteed 5% APR, which resembles an interest-like arrangement. |
| Audit Quality | 55/100 | Quantstamp audited the wallet with identified and remediated findings, and static analysis tools are used, but no dedicated audit of the PACK token/staking contracts is named. |
Summary: The wallet shows strong adoption and non-interest revenue sources like fee rebates and buybacks, but audit coverage of PACK's token/staking contracts and detailed treasury composition are not established in the sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 75/100 | PACK is explicitly positioned and used as a utility/loyalty token tied to real wallet activity, not marketed as a meme. |
| Governance Rights | 35/100 | Governance rights for PACK holders are described only as a future aspiration, not a currently functioning right. |
| Rewards Distribution | 40/100 | Rewards are split between usage-based PackBack rebates and a fixed, guaranteed 5% APR staking yield, the latter being interest-like. |
| Speculation Controls | 55/100 | Multi-year vesting, locked liquidity, and buybacks provide some speculation dampening, though the token still trades freely on exchanges. |
| Asset Backing | 35/100 | PACK is not backed by hard assets; its value rests on treasury reserves, buybacks, and in-wallet utility. |
Summary: PACK functions as a genuine utility/loyalty token with usage-based rewards, but a large majority of supply remains under team vesting control and holder governance rights are only promised for the future.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 65/100 | Staking is executed within the user's own non-custodial wallet by converting PACK to xPACK, with no lock-up or slashing disclosed. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 20/100 | A fixed, guaranteed 5% APR return unconnected to disclosed profit-sharing resembles Qard-with-increment rather than a clean Mudarabah/Wakalah structure. |
| Rewards Structure | 15/100 | Staking rewards are explicitly fixed and guaranteed rather than variable or performance-based. |
| Documentation | 75/100 | HashPack publishes a clear staking FAQ disclosing the rate, mechanics, and fee structure. |
| Shariah Alignment | 20/100 | The fixed guaranteed staking yield leaves an unresolved core Shariah question around interest-like structuring. |
Summary: HashPack offers native non-custodial staking via xPACK, but its fixed, guaranteed 5% APR reward raises an unresolved Shariah classification concern rather than reflecting a clear profit-sharing model.
Overall Assessment: HashPack is a credible, non-meme infrastructure project with real utility and a transparent team, but centralized token control and a fixed guaranteed staking yield leave meaningful Shariah-compliance questions unresolved.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar