Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does Stable involve interest?
Stable's core design does not embed interest-based lending or borrowing at the protocol level; it is settlement infrastructure, not a money market. The main riba-adjacent question concerns how staking rewards are generated given a fixed, non-inflationary token supply. Overall, the structure appears riba-free by design, though the reward-funding ambiguity warrants monitoring rather than alarm.
Assessment: Minor Riba
Score: 85/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well Stable avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Stable's chain revenue comes from a single-component gas fee paid in USDT0, covering base execution costs. Sources do not specify whether these fees are burned, retained by validators, or routed to a treasury, and treasury composition itself is undisclosed. There is no evidence of the protocol holding interest-bearing instruments or engaging in fixed-return lending. Since USDT0 itself is a stablecoin pegged via Tether's reserves (which may include interest-bearing assets at the issuer level, outside Stable's control), the chain's own fee mechanism appears free of direct riba exposure, though issuer-level reserve composition remains a separate consideration beyond this analysis's scope.
Staking rewards on Stable are set via validator-determined commission rates rather than a fixed guaranteed interest rate, which aligns better with profit-sharing-style, performance-based returns than with riba. However, the whitepaper's claim of a fixed 100 billion supply with "no inflation" creates uncertainty: if rewards are not funded through new issuance, the source must be transaction fees, treasury allocations, or another redistribution mechanism that is not documented. This ambiguity is a legitimate open question rather than confirmed riba, but investors should seek clarification before treating staking yield as unambiguously permissible.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does Stable involve?
Gharar in Stable is moderate: the team and purpose are clearly disclosed, but audit and reward-mechanics documentation are thin. A short live track record (mainnet since December 2025) adds further uncertainty. On balance, transparency about identity and design reduces gharar, while missing audit confirmation and unclear reward funding increase it.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 53/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
Stable is led by named, credentialed individuals — CEO Brian Mehler (Gateway Capital, Block.one), CTO Sam Kazemian (Frax founder, IQ.wiki co-founder), and COO Thibault Reichelt (Kirkland & Ellis, Abu Dhabi Investment Council) — which substantially reduces anonymity-related gharar. The chain is EVM-compatible with public developer documentation supporting standard tooling like MetaMask, Hardhat, and Etherscan. However, full open-source code publication is not explicitly confirmed in available sources, and independent trust signals beyond team bios and whitepaper claims remain limited given the project's very recent mainnet launch.
No security audit of the Stable chain or its smart contracts by a named firm is identified in the sources reviewed; audit materials from Halborn found in research relate to unrelated protocols (Substance Exchange, Ripple, Solana), not Stable. This absence of a confirmed, project-specific audit is a genuine gharar concern for a live financial settlement chain and should be named plainly as such. Additionally, unbonding periods, slashing conditions, and precise reward-funding sources for staking are undocumented, leaving structural questions unresolved for prospective participants.
Maysir — Does Stable involve gambling or speculation?
Stable shows no gambling-like or purely speculative design; it functions as settlement infrastructure for stablecoin transactions rather than a betting mechanism. Its utility is genuine and productive, though like most tokens it remains exposed to speculative secondary-market trading. The overall design leans toward permissible productive use rather than maysir.
Assessment: Minor Maysir (Incidental)
Score: 70/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether Stable is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
Stable is built to solve a concrete problem: enabling stablecoins, primarily USDT/USDT0, to function as native gas and settlement assets on an EVM-compatible Layer-1 chain, reducing friction for payments and enterprise integration. This is a genuine infrastructure use case — supporting real economic transactions such as payments and settlement — rather than a mechanism designed for zero-sum betting or chance-based payouts. Staking further ties rewards to network security participation (validator commission), a productive contribution rather than a wager, distinguishing Stable's core function clearly from gambling.
Weighed against this utility, STABLE the token trades on secondary markets where speculative behavior can occur, as with virtually any listed crypto asset — but this reflects third-party trading conduct, not a flaw in the coin's own design, and should not by itself push the assessment toward impermissibility. With a large FDV (reportedly $2.81B+) and substantial locked/vesting supply (75% under 4-year vesting), price volatility around unlock events is plausible. Still, the underlying protocol's purpose — settlement infrastructure and staking-based security — remains oriented toward productive utility rather than chance-based speculation.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 82/100 | Team members are named with detailed, verifiable professional backgrounds (CEO, CTO, COO) disclosed on the official team page. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 62/100 | No fraud, hack, or rug-pull allegations against Stable appear in the sources, but the project is very new (mainnet Dec 2025) so an independent track record is limited. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 78/100 | The base protocol has a clearly articulated real-world use case as stablecoin settlement/payments infrastructure, not pure hype. |
| Ethical Practices | 85/100 | The chain's own design is stablecoin settlement/payments infrastructure with no inherent link to a prohibited industry. |
Summary: Stable has a named, credentialed team and a genuine infrastructure use case tied to Tether's stablecoin ecosystem, though it is too new for an extensive independent track record.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 82/100 | The core protocol business is a settlement-focused blockchain for stablecoins, not a prohibited sector. |
| Transaction Fees | 58/100 | Fees use a simple base-execution-cost gas model paid in USDT0 with no priority tips, but the sources never state whether collected fees are burned, retained, or distributed. |
| Treasury Assets | 45/100 (low evidence) | Treasury composition (e.g., whether holdings are interest-bearing) is not described anywhere in the sources. |
| Revenue Model | 55/100 | No lending/interest revenue is described, but the actual revenue model and how fees translate into protocol income is not clearly specified. |
| Transparency | 62/100 | Public whitepaper and developer docs exist, but full open-source code release is not explicitly confirmed in the sources. |
| Governance | 52/100 | Governance runs through STABLE-token delegation and validator voting, but heavy team/investor token concentration (50% combined) creates centralization risk. |
| Launch Fairness | 30/100 | Launch allocated 50% of supply to team and investors/advisors, which is a VC/insider-heavy structure rather than a fair public launch. |
| Token Distribution | 35/100 | Documented allocation shows half of total supply concentrated in team and investor hands, limiting broad distribution. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 55/100 | STABLE has defined utility (staking/governance) but is not the network's transactional asset (that role belongs to USDT), leaving its practical utility secondary to speculation on the token itself. |
Summary: The protocol is a stablecoin-settlement Layer-1 with disclosed but VC/insider-heavy token allocation and governance run through a delegated staking model.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 65/100 | No lending-based or interest-based revenue stream is identified for the base protocol in the sources. |
| Financial Status | 45/100 | Large amounts of locked/unvesting supply and a very short trading history create potential volatility that the sources only partially quantify. |
| Interest Assessment | 78/100 | The base protocol is described as settlement infrastructure with no built-in lending or borrowing market. |
| Audit Quality | 15/100 (low evidence) | No security audit of the Stable chain or its own smart contracts appears in the sources; audit materials found relate to unrelated projects. |
Summary: No base-layer lending/interest activity is described, but revenue mechanics, treasury holdings, and independent security audits of the Stable chain itself are not documented in the sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 72/100 | STABLE is explicitly described as serving consensus security, governance, and ecosystem-incentive functions, not as a purely speculative meme token. |
| Governance Rights | 62/100 | Token holders can vote/delegate for governance and validator selection per the documentation. |
| Rewards Distribution | 48/100 | Validator commission-based rewards are variable, but the underlying funding source is unclear given the stated fixed, non-inflationary supply. |
| Speculation Controls | 50/100 | Multi-year vesting with cliffs restrains most insider tokens, but the fully-unlocked genesis allocation at launch permits some immediate speculative supply. |
| Asset Backing | 48/100 | The token's value rests on network utility (staking/governance) rather than any disclosed hard-asset backing. |
Summary: STABLE is a governance/staking utility token with substantial vesting controls on insiders, though reward funding sources and full asset backing remain unclear.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 68/100 | Staking is delegated (non-custodial) with documented validator/delegator roles and commission mechanics. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 45/100 | The staking arrangement resembles a delegated-service/commission model, but ambiguity over reward funding (fixed supply vs. rewards) leaves its precise Islamic contract classification unresolved. |
| Rewards Structure | 55/100 | Rewards vary by validator commission rate, which is a positive sign, but the ultimate source of the reward pool is not clearly documented. |
| Documentation | 63/100 | Staking module documentation covers contract addresses, functions, and commission mechanics in reasonable detail. |
| Shariah Alignment | 45/100 | The unresolved question of how staking rewards are funded under a "fixed, non-inflationary supply" claim leaves a core point undetermined for Shariah assessment. |
Summary: A native delegated-staking mechanism exists with documented validator/delegator functions, but questions remain about lock-up terms, slashing, and the ultimate source of staking rewards.
Overall Assessment: Stable presents as a credible, non-meme payments infrastructure project with reasonable transparency, but insider-heavy token distribution, unaudited status, and unresolved staking-reward mechanics leave several Shariah-relevant questions open.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar