Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does Starpower involve interest?
Starpower's disclosed design shows no interest-bearing lending, borrowing, or deposit-yield mechanism; rewards flow from device participation and grid-service data, not capital deposits. Revenue is generated through hardware sales, licensing, SaaS, and bill-payment-funded token burns. On the evidence available, Starpower's core structure appears free of riba.
Assessment: Minor Riba
Score: 76.1/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well Starpower avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Starpower's revenue streams — device sales (Starplug, Starbattery), network licensing income, SaaS fees, and a burn mechanism funded by power-company bill payments — are all tied to tangible goods and services rather than interest-bearing instruments. No treasury composition is disclosed in available sources, so it cannot be confirmed whether idle funds are held in interest-bearing accounts. Absent evidence to the contrary, the disclosed revenue model is service- and hardware-based, consistent with permissible commercial activity rather than riba-generating finance.
The protocol's core business is aggregating physical energy hardware into a virtual power plant for demand-response services — a genuinely productive, asset-backed activity. There is no evidence in these sources that Starpower itself offers lending or borrowing functions, or interest-bearing partnerships with financial institutions. A secondary source's claim of a "stake PWR to earn STAR" yield derivative is uncorroborated by the project's own documentation, which describes a single STAR token earned through device participation. On the primary evidence, no riba-bearing mechanism is established.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does Starpower involve?
Starpower carries a moderate-to-elevated degree of uncertainty, driven less by the underlying business (which is tangible and revenue-generating) than by inconsistent public documentation. Named, credentialed founders and real device adoption reduce ambiguity, while conflicting tokenomics figures and an unaudited codebase increase it. On balance, informed investors should proceed only with caution given these disclosure gaps.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 57.1/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
Starpower is led by named, credentialed individuals — CEO Laser Ding (formerly of HashKey Group) and CTO Dr. Darcy Jia (PhD in photovoltaic engineering) — which meaningfully reduces anonymity-related gharar. The project has real backers (Framework Ventures, Solana Ventures, Alliance, HashKey Capital, Fenbushi, and others) and reports concrete adoption metrics: 1M+ connected devices and 5M+ wallet users. However, open-source status is not established in available sources, and distribution figures are inconsistent (30% vs 55% to network participation), leaving disclosure quality incomplete.
No Starpower-specific smart contract security audit could be identified in available sources; the Halborn reports retrieved concern unrelated projects (Substance Exchange, SSP Wallet, Stakehouse, Ripple), not Starpower's own contracts. This absence of a named, dated audit of Starpower's codebase is a genuine gharar concern and should be treated as such by any prospective investor. Compounding this, a secondary source describes a dual-token "PWR/SPWR" governance and yield structure that directly contradicts the project's own gitbook, which describes only a single STAR token — an unresolved documentation conflict that adds further uncertainty around governance rights and reward mechanics.
Maysir — Does Starpower involve gambling or speculation?
Starpower's core design is not gambling: rewards are earned through verifiable device connectivity and grid-response participation, tied to real energy infrastructure rather than chance-based payouts. Speculative trading can occur on secondary markets for any listed token, but this is a function of exchange behavior, not the protocol's design. The underlying mechanism itself does not resemble maysir.
Assessment: Moderate Maysir (High Risk)
Score: 66.4/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether Starpower is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
Starpower's utility is grounded in physical infrastructure: households connect smart plugs, batteries, and EV chargers to a virtual power plant that provides demand-response services to power grids. Rewards are earned via a Proof of Connectivity and Proof of Response model, based on measurable device data quality and effective power contribution — a productive, output-linked reward structure. With reported figures of over $2M lifetime revenue and 100,000+ users at one milestone, this reflects genuine commercial activity rather than a zero-sum speculative game, distinguishing it clearly from gambling-style token designs.
Against this productive foundation, one industry commentary notes STAR experienced a "speculative listing pump" following its Binance TGE in September 2025, with reported CEX volume around $81M/24h. Such secondary-market volatility is common to newly listed tokens generally and reflects third-party trading behavior rather than a flaw in Starpower's own design — and per the framing principle, this speculative activity by others should not be held against the protocol's own Shariah standing. Still, prospective investors should recognize that short-term price action may diverge sharply from the project's underlying, gradually-realized utility.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 78/100 | The founding team is named with specific credentials (ex-HashKey, PhD photovoltaics) and the project has named institutional backers. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 55/100 | No fraud, hack, or rug-pull allegations specific to Starpower appear in the sources, but this is inferred from absence rather than a direct clearance statement. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 85/100 | Sources describe a concrete real-world use case connecting IoT energy hardware to grid services with measurable device counts and revenue. |
| Ethical Practices | 90/100 | The protocol's own design is focused on renewable energy coordination, a sector with no inherent Shariah concern. |
Summary: Starpower has a named, credentialed founding team, reputable institutional backers, and demonstrable real-world device adoption, with no fraud indicators found in the sources.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 88/100 | The base protocol operates in the energy/DePIN sector, which sources describe with no prohibited-sector activity. |
| Transaction Fees | 82/100 | Documented mechanism repurchases and burns STAR from real revenue streams rather than extracting fee-based interest. |
| Treasury Assets | 45/100 (low evidence) | Treasury asset composition (e.g., whether interest-bearing instruments are held) is not disclosed anywhere in the sources. |
| Revenue Model | 82/100 | Revenue is explicitly sourced from device sales, licensing, and SaaS services rather than interest-based lending. |
| Transparency | 55/100 | Public documentation (gitbook/lite paper) exists, but open-source code status and full disclosure practices are not confirmed. |
| Governance | 40/100 | Governance structure is unclear and one source's claim of a separate governance token is not corroborated elsewhere. |
| Launch Fairness | 50/100 | An airdrop tied to hardware purchase and a Binance TGE are described, but insider-allocation fairness details are not given. |
| Token Distribution | 45/100 | Distribution percentages cited across sources are inconsistent (30% vs 55% to participation/partners), preventing a confident assessment. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 55/100 | Sources explicitly note the token has passed through a "speculative listing pump" phase alongside genuine device-based utility. |
Summary: The protocol coordinates household energy hardware into a virtual power plant and uses a revenue-funded buyback-and-burn mechanism, though governance, open-source status, and precise token distribution remain unclear or inconsistently reported.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 82/100 | Cited revenue sources (hardware, licensing, SaaS, bill-payment burns) show no interest-based component. |
| Financial Status | 55/100 | Revenue and funding figures are cited, but no full financial statements or stability metrics are provided. |
| Interest Assessment | 65/100 | Primary documentation shows no protocol-level lending/borrowing, though one uncorroborated source hints at a yield-derivative structure. |
| Audit Quality | 12/100 | No audit of Starpower's own contracts appears in the sources; the Halborn audits found concern unrelated projects. |
Summary: Starpower reports modest but real revenue from hardware, licensing and SaaS with no protocol-level lending, but no Starpower-specific security audit could be found in the sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 85/100 | STAR is described consistently as a utility token used for rewards and ecosystem payments, not a meme token. |
| Governance Rights | 40/100 | Governance rights attached to STAR are ambiguous given conflicting single- vs dual-token descriptions across sources. |
| Rewards Distribution | 85/100 | Reward mechanics are explicitly variable, tied to device connectivity and power-usage data under a phased incentive model. |
| Speculation Controls | 50/100 | A revenue-funded burn mechanism exists, but no Starpower-specific vesting/anti-dump controls are documented, and speculative trading is noted. |
| Asset Backing | 80/100 | The token is tied to genuine hardware network utility and a revenue-funded buyback-and-burn mechanism. |
Summary: STAR functions as a utility token with variable, activity-based rewards and a burn mechanism, though governance rights and anti-speculation controls are not clearly documented.
5. Staking Mechanism
Starpower has no native staking mechanism, so these five criteria are not applicable and are excluded from the score entirely rather than counted as zeros.
Overall Assessment: Starpower presents as a genuine, team-backed energy DePIN project with real utility and a non-interest revenue model, but gaps in audit evidence, governance clarity, and treasury disclosure limit full confidence in its Shariah profile.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar