Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does LeverUp MON involve interest?
LeverUp's protocol revenue derives from trading fees and a staking commission rather than interest-bearing lending, and rewards are explicitly variable rather than fixed. This structure is closer to permissible profit-sharing than classic riba. For Muslim investors, the reward mechanism itself is not the primary concern here.
Assessment: Minor Riba
Score: 85/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well LeverUp MON avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Trading fees collected by LeverUp are stated to be redistributed to traders and stakers rather than retained as protocol profit, while a separate commission on LVMON staking yield funds open-market LV buybacks and burns. This is a fee-and-commission model tied to actual trading activity and on-chain yield generation, not a fixed-return lending arrangement. No evidence in the research indicates treasury funds are parked in conventional interest-bearing instruments; MON collateral is instead deployed into Monad's native proof-of-stake infrastructure, which is a fundamentally different, yield-sharing mechanism rather than debt-based interest.
LVMON staking rewards are sourced from Monad's proof-of-stake infrastructure and are explicitly described as variable, fluctuating with staking participation rather than promising a guaranteed rate. This variability is the key feature that distinguishes it from riba: returns depend on network performance and participation levels, resembling a profit-sharing arrangement rather than a predetermined interest payment. The protocol's commission on this yield, used for buybacks and burns, is also performance-linked rather than fixed. Absent a guaranteed, predetermined return, this staking design does not exhibit the defining characteristic of riba.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does LeverUp MON involve?
LeverUp carries meaningful uncertainty stemming primarily from unverifiable team credentials and an unconfirmed audit status, not from its basic token mechanics. Its public documentation, GitHub repository, and functioning app reduce some opacity. On balance, the informational gharar here is substantial enough to warrant real caution.
Assessment: Excessive Gharar (High Uncertainty)
Score: 43.9/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
The official LeverUp LinkedIn presence lists employees without biographies or verifiable credentials, and searches for similarly-named individuals surfaced numerous unrelated ventures with no confirmed link to this Monad-based project. This leaves the actual founding team essentially unverifiable from available sources. Counterbalancing this, LeverUp operates a real, functioning perpetuals exchange with public developer documentation, an app, and an open GitHub repository, plus named venture-fund backing at launch — features indicating genuine operational transparency even where personal identities remain obscure.
No security audit specifically covering LeverUp's or LVMON's own smart contracts could be confirmed in the research: a Halborn audit report retrieved during research is explicitly titled for a different, apparently unrelated platform, and LeverUp's own gitbook audit page content was not retrieved. This should be named plainly as an unaudited-protocol concern, which is a material gharar issue for any DeFi platform handling user collateral and leveraged positions. Governance structure and decentralisation level are also not clearly documented, compounding the uncertainty around how the protocol is actually controlled.
Maysir — Does LeverUp MON involve gambling or speculation?
LeverUp itself is not designed as a gambling product; it is infrastructure for a decentralized perpetuals exchange with a collateral-and-staking system. However, the high-leverage derivatives trading it facilitates can be misused speculatively by end users, and this third-party misuse does not by itself render the underlying protocol impermissible. The final take is that the protocol's own design serves genuine functions distinct from pure wagering.
Assessment: Minor Maysir (Incidental)
Score: 70/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether LeverUp MON is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
LeverUp provides real infrastructure: an on-chain perpetuals exchange with fully transparent position, margin, and settlement data, plus a native collateral token (LVMON) that can be staked for yield tied to Monad's proof-of-stake rewards. This settlement and collateral-management utility, along with fee redistribution to traders and stakers and a buyback-and-burn mechanism, constitutes productive economic activity rather than a bet against the house. The existence of a functioning app, documentation, and GitHub repository supports its identity as working financial infrastructure rather than a purely speculative vehicle.
Against this genuine utility must be weighed the fact that very high leverage is a core, advertised feature of the trading platform itself, and thin daily volume plus low token prices for both LVMON and LV point to an early-stage, illiquid, speculation-prone secondary market. Leverage availability can enable excessive risk-taking by traders, but this is a matter of individual usage choices rather than a flaw in the protocol's own design or purpose, and does not by itself push the instrument toward a maysir classification. Genuine adoption remains modest at this stage.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 30/100 | A company page lists staff names but no credentials, and other same/similar-named profiles found are unrelated ventures, so the real team cannot be verified from these sources. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 55/100 | No fraud or enforcement action specifically naming this protocol was found, but the sources retrieved on scams concern unrelated platforms, so absence of evidence is not strong proof of a clean record. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 60/100 | The sources confirm an operating exchange with real trading volume and fee generation, indicating genuine functional utility rather than pure hype. |
| Ethical Practices | 25/100 | The protocol's own core design is a perpetual derivatives exchange offering extremely high leverage, which is itself a highly speculative structure rather than third-party misuse of a neutral tool. |
Summary: The team behind this specific crypto protocol could not be verified as credentialed or traceable from the sources, though no direct fraud allegations against it were found.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 20/100 | The base protocol's stated business is high-leverage perpetual futures trading, which sits in a sector of significant Shariah concern by its own design. |
| Transaction Fees | 65/100 | Sources state that protocol fees are redistributed back to traders and stakers rather than extracted purely as protocol profit, though a commission is separately taken for buybacks. |
| Treasury Assets | 40/100 | Excess reserves are described as being deployed into unspecified "stablecoin yield strategies" and PoS-based yield infrastructure, and the composition of these holdings is not detailed enough to confirm they are free of interest-bearing instruments. |
| Revenue Model | 45/100 | Revenue comes from trading fees and a staking-yield commission rather than conventional lending, but some reserve deployment into yield strategies leaves interest exposure unclear. |
| Transparency | 60/100 | Public developer documentation, a gitbook, and a GitHub repository were found, though governance and decision-making transparency are less clearly documented. |
| Governance | 20/100 (low evidence) | The sources do not describe any decentralised governance process, voting mechanism, or holder decision rights for the protocol. |
| Launch Fairness | 60/100 | Token distribution includes a season-based contribution airdrop and vesting cliffs for team and treasury allocations rather than an unrestricted pre-mine dump. |
| Token Distribution | 60/100 | The bulk of LV supply is allocated to ongoing trader incentive emissions and community-facing categories rather than concentrated purely in insiders, per the disclosed allocation breakdown. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 25/100 | The base protocol is explicitly built around extreme-leverage perpetual trading, making the platform speculation-dominant by its own stated design. |
Summary: The base protocol is a Monad-based, LP-free perpetual derivatives exchange with fee redistribution and a vested, multi-category token allocation rather than an unrestricted insider dump.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 45/100 | Revenue is trading-fee and staking-commission based rather than explicit interest income, but ambiguous "yield strategy" deployments leave some doubt. |
| Financial Status | 35/100 | Reported market data shows very low token prices and thin daily trading volume, indicating an early-stage and financially fragile market position. |
| Interest Assessment | 30/100 | The protocol's core activity is leveraged perpetual trading and its treasury deploys assets into PoS and stablecoin yield mechanisms, and the sources do not clarify whether any funding-rate or yield component resembles interest. |
| Audit Quality | 15/100 | No confirmed, dated audit of this protocol's own smart contracts was found; a retrieved Halborn report is titled for a different platform, and the protocol's own audit page content could not be verified. |
Summary: The protocol generates revenue from trading fees and staking commissions and offers native yield through its own settlement token, but trades in a thin, low-liquidity market and lacks a confirmed independent security audit.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 75/100 | LVMON functions as a defined settlement and collateral instrument within the protocol's mechanics rather than as a token with no stated purpose. |
| Governance Rights | N/A | No governance rights are described for LVMON holders, which appears to be a designed feature of a settlement token rather than a withheld right, so its absence is treated as neutral. |
| Rewards Distribution | 70/100 | Staking rewards are explicitly described as variable and sourced from underlying proof-of-stake activity rather than fixed or guaranteed. |
| Speculation Controls | 20/100 | Beyond a collateral ratio and peg-stability mechanisms, no meaningful controls against the platform's extreme-leverage speculative trading were found. |
| Asset Backing | 65/100 | LVMON is backed by MON collateral held in a vault with defined price-anchoring and redemption safeguards. |
Summary: The settlement token has a defined utility role backed by collateral and offers variable, activity-based rewards, but carries no governance rights and sits within an inherently high-leverage trading platform.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 60/100 | Staking is described as open to any wallet with no whitelist, suggesting a non-custodial, permissionless design, though explicit custody terms are not detailed. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 35/100 | The reward flow involves the protocol taking a commission on yield generated from deployed collateral, a structure not explicitly classified under any Islamic contract in the sources, leaving its categorization unresolved. |
| Rewards Structure | 75/100 | Documentation explicitly states staking yield is variable, participation-dependent, and not guaranteed. |
| Documentation | 60/100 | Multiple documentation and explainer sources describe how staking works mechanically, though a dedicated formal risk-disclosure page was not retrieved. |
| Shariah Alignment | 30/100 | The staking reward mechanism sits inside a platform whose core business is extreme-leverage perpetual trading, leaving an unresolved core question about the overall arrangement's alignment. |
Summary: A native, seemingly permissionless staking mechanism exists that pays variable proof-of-stake-derived yield, but its precise Islamic contract classification is not addressed in the sources.
Overall Assessment: The coin represents a functioning utility instrument within a real derivatives protocol, but the protocol's own core business of extreme-leverage perpetual trading, an unverifiable team, and the absence of a confirmed audit leave significant unresolved Shariah and diligence concerns.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar