Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does Prosper [OLD] involve interest?
Prosper [OLD] does not run on an interest-bearing lending model; there is no borrowing, deposit-interest, or fixed-coupon mechanism in the base protocol. Its income comes from pool fees redistributed through a "Smart Treasury" and a token-burn mechanic. For Muslim investors, riba is not the primary concern here — other structural issues are.
Assessment: Moderate Riba
Score: 50/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well Prosper [OLD] avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Revenue for Prosper [OLD] is generated purely from fees charged on prediction/hedging pool activity. A portion of PROS-denominated fees is burned, while the remainder flows into a Smart Treasury that is shared monthly with DAO governance participants. This is a fee-sharing and deflationary-burn model, not an interest-bearing credit facility, so it does not itself constitute riba. However, the treasury's underlying asset composition is undisclosed in available sources, meaning it is not possible to confirm the treasury itself avoids holding interest-bearing instruments.
Staking rewards are variable, sourced from pooled protocol fees rather than a fixed, predetermined interest rate — a structure more consistent with profit-sharing than riba. Documentation describes users staking PROS and "periodically" claiming rewards tied to governance participation, but no fixed percentage, guaranteed return, or interest formula is specified. The absence of a fixed-rate promise is a positive signal, though the lack of detail on reward calculation, lock-up terms, or slashing leaves the reward structure only partially transparent, which limits confidence rather than raising riba concerns directly.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does Prosper [OLD] involve?
Uncertainty is substantial for Prosper [OLD], driven by an anonymous team, an unaudited original contract, and a weak third-party trust rating. Some transparency exists through a verifiable Etherscan contract and documented tokenomics, but this does not offset the deeper disclosure gaps. Overall, the project carries meaningful informational gharar that Muslim investors should weigh carefully.
Assessment: Excessive Gharar (High Uncertainty)
Score: 31/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
No named, credentialed founders or team members tied specifically to Prosper [OLD] were identified; the "Team & Advisors" allocation (roughly 13.375% of supply) is disclosed only as a vesting bucket, with no individuals named. The token contract itself is verifiable on Etherscan, offering baseline code transparency, but anonymous leadership combined with a "D" scam-risk rating from an independent screening site is a material transparency shortfall. Multi-round sales (seed, private, strategic, public) at differing prices further concentrate early information and pricing advantages with undisclosed insiders.
No security audit specifically covering the original 2021 Prosper [OLD] ERC-20/prediction-pool contracts was found in available sources. The Zellic and SlowMist audits that do exist cover a later, separately-focused "Omnichain"/"Upgraded" token contract and cannot be extended to this token's original code. This is a plain, namable gharar concern: an unaudited base contract handling pooled user funds and payouts introduces real uncertainty about smart-contract risk. Disclosure of staking lock-up duration, penalty structure, and precise reward formulas is also absent, compounding the opacity.
Maysir — Does Prosper [OLD] involve gambling or speculation?
Maysir is the central issue for Prosper [OLD], since the protocol's core, intended function is creating and joining pools where users wager on outcomes for payouts. This is not a case of a neutral tool being misused by third parties — wagering is the product's own designed purpose. Given this, the maysir concern is direct and structural rather than incidental.
Assessment: Maysir / Qimar (Gambling)
Score: 32.3/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether Prosper [OLD] is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
The protocol does offer real functioning infrastructure — non-custodial pools, adjustable fee/timeframe parameters, a fee-discount mechanism, and treasury-based governance rewards — distinguishing it technically from a pure meme token with no product. However, the "utility" being delivered is itself a wagering/prediction market: users stake value on binary or variable outcomes to win a payout from a shared pool. Even the associated "insurance" feature is a rebate paid to losing bettors from other losing funds, which is still an outcome tied to betting activity rather than a productive service.
Weighing utility against speculative character, Prosper [OLD]'s adoption and functioning contracts show it is a real, used platform rather than an abandoned shell, and its fee-burn and treasury mechanics show some economic design beyond pure token speculation. Yet the base offering — pooled wagering on outcomes with cashback for losers — mirrors betting-pool structures more than productive economic activity, and this is a design choice, not a misuse scenario. Combined with thin market data and a weak trust rating, secondary-market trading in PROS is also likely to reflect speculative behavior layered atop an already wagering-oriented base product.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 20/100 | No named, credentialed team members specific to this project were found across the sources, though this is inferred from absence rather than a direct statement of anonymity. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 20/100 | An independent scam-screening site explicitly rates Prosper [OLD] "D," a direct negative trust signal. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 35/100 | The protocol has a real, working product (pooled prediction/hedging markets) but its core function is wagering on outcomes, limiting genuine non-speculative utility. |
| Ethical Practices | 20/100 | The base design itself centers on betting pools with "losing bets" and cashback insurance, i.e., a gambling-like (maysir) structure built into the protocol's own function, not third-party misuse. |
Summary: The team behind Prosper [OLD] is not identified in the sources, and an independent scam-risk rating flags the project as low-trust.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 25/100 | The core protocol business is a prediction/wagering market, a sector with direct Shariah concern in its own design. |
| Transaction Fees | 65/100 | Fees are discounted and burned when paid in PROS, avoiding interest-like extraction, though full treatment of non-PROS fees is unclear. |
| Treasury Assets | 50/100 (low evidence) | The composition of the Smart Treasury (cash, PROS, or other assets) is not disclosed in these sources, so interest-bearing holdings cannot be ruled in or out. |
| Revenue Model | 60/100 | Revenue comes from pool/platform fees rather than interest, though it is gambling-pool-derived rather than a clean service fee. |
| Transparency | 45/100 | The token contract is verifiable on Etherscan but no comprehensive whitepaper or governance documentation specific to this version was found. |
| Governance | 40/100 | Governance participants are said to share treasury proceeds monthly, but voting/decentralisation mechanics are not detailed. |
| Launch Fairness | 25/100 | Multiple discounted seed/private/strategic rounds preceded public sale, indicating insider price advantage rather than a fair launch. |
| Token Distribution | 35/100 | Distribution is spread across many buckets but a large share (private rounds, team, marketing) went to insiders before public participants. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 20/100 | The platform's primary function is prediction/betting pools, making it speculation-dominant by design. |
Summary: Prosper [OLD] is a non-custodial prediction/hedging pool platform with fee burns, a Smart Treasury, and a multi-round token launch that gave insiders price advantages.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 70/100 | Revenue is explicitly fee-based from pool activity, not interest/lending income. |
| Financial Status | 25/100 | No market cap, volume or stability data was retrievable, and an independent "D" scam rating suggests weak standing. |
| Interest Assessment | 80/100 | The base protocol is explicitly a prediction/hedging market, not a lending or borrowing facility, so no interest mechanism exists at the protocol level. |
| Audit Quality | 10/100 | No audit of the original Prosper [OLD] contracts was found; audits located cover a later, different token contract version. |
Summary: Revenue is fee-based rather than interest-based, but no market-stability data or audit of the original contracts could be found in these sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 55/100 | PROS has defined utility (pool creation, fee discount, insurance participation, governance share) rather than being a pure meme token. |
| Governance Rights | 40/100 | Governance participation is mentioned but detailed voting rights/mechanics are not described. |
| Rewards Distribution | 65/100 | Rewards come from variable fee/treasury flows rather than a fixed guaranteed rate. |
| Speculation Controls | 25/100 | The only documented anti-speculation feature is a narrow 14-day lock tied to insurance-cashback claims, not a systemic control. |
| Asset Backing | 30/100 | No clear backing asset is described; value depends on fee flows and an undisclosed treasury composition. |
Summary: PROS has defined utility functions (pool creation, fee discounts, insurance, governance share) but lacks meaningful anti-speculation design or disclosed backing.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 40/100 | A stake/unstake/claim mechanism is documented, but custodial status and technical implementation are not detailed. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 20/100 (low evidence) | Sources give no basis to classify the staking arrangement under a recognized Islamic contract structure, leaving the classification unresolved. |
| Rewards Structure | 35/100 | Rewards are described only as "periodically distributed" without clarity on whether they are fixed or genuinely variable performance-based payouts. |
| Documentation | 30/100 | A basic staking guide exists but lock-up terms, slashing, and reward formulas are not disclosed. |
| Shariah Alignment | 20/100 | Combined gharar from an undocumented treasury, unresolved staking classification, and a gambling-adjacent core protocol leaves a decisive Shariah question unresolved. |
Summary: A native stake/unstake/reward mechanism is documented, but its custodial nature, lock-up terms, and Islamic-contract classification remain unclear from the sources.
Overall Assessment: Prosper [OLD] is a genuine but gambling-adjacent DeFi prediction/hedging platform with an opaque team, unaudited original contracts, and several unresolved Shariah-relevant gaps in its treasury, staking and governance disclosures.
![Prosper [OLD] logo](https://coin-images.coingecko.com/coins/images/13668/large/PROS_OldToken.png?1740124943)
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar