Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana involve interest?
GST itself carries no interest mechanism, coupon, or fixed yield within STEPN's own protocol. Platform revenue comes from marketplace and royalty fees converted to stablecoins, not lending spreads. For Muslim investors, GST's own design is free of direct riba, though third-party lending markets built atop it deserve separate scrutiny.
Assessment: Moderate Riba
Score: 64.6/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana avoids interest-based mechanisms.
STEPN's revenue derives from a 6% marketplace fee (2% trade, 4% royalty) on NFT sneaker transactions, reported at roughly $122.5M in Q2 2022. These fees are converted into stablecoins held by an ecosystem treasury address, with a portion funding GMT buyback-and-burn. Nothing in the available disclosures indicates this treasury is deployed into interest-bearing instruments, bonds, or conventional lending pools. The revenue model is fee-based rather than interest-based, which is a favourable structural feature, though the treasury's exact stablecoin custody and any yield generated on it are not fully transparent in public sources.
The core STEPN/GST protocol does not itself offer lending, borrowing, or native yield products; earning and spending GST is tied strictly to movement activity and in-app burns. Separately, third-party Solana platforms such as Solend allow GST to be supplied or borrowed for interest, but this is an independent DeFi application, not a feature GST's own issuer built or endorses. Under the stated judgment principle, this external, optional interest-bearing use by unaffiliated platforms should not be read into GST's own design; the token's native mechanics remain free of any built-in riba structure.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana involve?
GST carries moderate uncertainty: the team is named and verifiable, but supply mechanics and audit follow-through leave gaps. Reduced uncertainty comes from a traceable founding team and public track record; increased uncertainty comes from unresolved audit findings and unclear open-source status. On balance, caution is warranted before treating GST as a low-ambiguity holding.
Assessment: Excessive Gharar (High Uncertainty)
Score: 49.5/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
Find Satoshi Lab's leadership is publicly identified — Jerry Huang, Yawn Rong, CSO Jessica Duan, Lead Designer Ryan Turner — alongside a named advisory board including an Adidas VP, and the project has a verifiable 2021 Solana Ignition Hackathon win. This is a meaningfully transparent team structure compared to anonymous projects. However, one source found no public GitHub repository for the project, which limits independent code verification. Combined with GST's uncapped, inflation-heavy allocation across private sale, exchange launchpad, team, and advisors, disclosure quality is decent on people but weaker on code and precise token-flow transparency.
Two audits are on record: Verilog Solutions (April 2022) identified a medium-severity centralisation risk from an owner-controlled unlimited-mint function, and HashEx (September 2022) recorded one high-severity finding on the GST contract. Neither finding is confirmed as resolved in available sources, and no later or Solana-specific re-audit appears. This is a genuine gharar concern worth naming plainly: an unresolved high-severity audit finding, paired with unrestricted minting authority, introduces real uncertainty about supply control and contract behaviour that outstanding disclosures do not fully clarify.
Maysir — Does STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana involve gambling or speculation?
GST is not designed as a pure gambling instrument; it is earned through verifiable physical activity and burned through defined in-app actions. What resembles maysir is the token's secondary-market trading behaviour, which has been highly volatile and detached from app-usage fundamentals. The underlying earn-and-burn design is not maysir by construction, though speculative trading around it warrants caution.
Assessment: Moderate Maysir (High Risk)
Score: 51.1/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
Although GST is a functional utility token tied to movement-based earning rather than a token built solely for speculation, its market price has behaved in a distinctly speculative manner, with GST and its sister token GMT falling sharply from 2022 highs after rapid earlier gains. Commentators have compared the reward economics to Ponzi-like dynamics, given high entry costs (NFT sneakers) and dependence on continuous new-user inflow to sustain payouts. This price action, driven more by inflow expectations than app fundamentals, pushes trading behaviour toward maysir-like speculation even though the token's core design is utility-oriented.
Weighed against this speculative trading pattern is a real underlying use case: a large user base historically earned GST through actual physical activity within a functioning app, and fees generated from genuine NFT marketplace activity funded token burns. This productive, activity-linked utility distinguishes GST from tokens with no economic function whatsoever. Still, given the acknowledged sustainability concerns in the emission model, uncapped inflationary supply, and heavy reliance on new-user growth, most investors should treat GST's secondary-market price primarily as a speculative instrument rather than a stable reflection of app utility, and approach it with caution.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 78/100 | Founders and key personnel (Huang, Rong, Duan, Turner) plus a named advisory board are publicly documented with backgrounds and prior ventures. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 55/100 | No direct fraud/rug-pull finding against STEPN itself appears, but press criticism of Ponzi-like dynamics and steep price declines temper confidence. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 65/100 | The app has a real, functioning fitness-based use case (move-to-earn) rather than being purely speculative, though its long-term durability has been publicly questioned. |
| Ethical Practices | 75/100 | The protocol's own design is a fitness/lifestyle gamification app with no inherent tie to a prohibited industry. |
Summary: STEPN is run by a named, traceable Australian team with credentialed founders and advisors, and while no direct fraud finding is documented, the move-to-earn model has drawn public Ponzi-dynamic criticism and its token prices have fallen sharply from 2022 highs.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 75/100 | The core protocol operates a fitness/gaming lifestyle app, a sector not identified as prohibited. |
| Transaction Fees | 68/100 | Fees fund buyback-and-burn and treasury activity rather than functioning as interest-like extraction. |
| Treasury Assets | 50/100 | Treasury fee proceeds are converted into stablecoins, but the sources do not clarify whether these holdings generate interest. |
| Revenue Model | 72/100 | Revenue comes from marketplace trading and royalty fees, not from interest-based lending. |
| Transparency | 45/100 | A whitepaper and audits are public, but one source explicitly found no public GitHub repository, weakening open-source transparency. |
| Governance | 48/100 | Governance is structured through GMT staking, but an audit documented an owner-controlled unlimited-mint function as a centralisation risk. |
| Launch Fairness | 32/100 | Substantial allocations went to private sale, launchpad sale, team and advisors alongside vesting schedules extending to 2040, indicating a non-fair launch. |
| Token Distribution | 45/100 | Distribution mixes a broad community/move-and-earn pool with sizeable insider allocations (team, advisors, private/launchpad sale). |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 38/100 | Press coverage and price history show strong speculative trading behaviour alongside the game's genuine utility function. |
Summary: The base protocol is a fitness-gamification app where GST is earned through movement and burned through in-app spending, with revenue from marketplace fees, but token distribution shows meaningful insider allocation and one source found no public code repository.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 72/100 | Disclosed revenue comes from marketplace/royalty fees rather than riba-based sources. |
| Financial Status | 40/100 | Only limited, dated financial disclosure (one quarter's earnings) exists, and token prices have fallen sharply since 2022. |
| Interest Assessment | 78/100 | The base STEPN/GST protocol itself provides no lending, borrowing, or native yield; interest-based lending of GST occurs only via an independent third-party platform. |
| Audit Quality | 42/100 | Two named audit firms (Verilog Solutions, HashEx) reviewed the GST contract, but each recorded unresolved or only-acknowledged issues, including a centralisation risk. |
Summary: Protocol revenue is fee-based rather than interest-based and the base protocol itself offers no lending or native yield, but disclosed audits found unresolved centralisation and severity issues and market financial disclosure is thin.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 68/100 | GST is documented as a functional in-game utility token used for repairs, upgrades and minting, not a governance or purely symbolic token. |
| Governance Rights | N/A | GST holders have no governance rights by design, as governance is deliberately allocated to the separate GMT token, which is a structural choice rather than a Shariah defect. |
| Rewards Distribution | 70/100 | GST rewards are variable, tied to user movement and sneaker attributes, not a fixed or interest-like payout. |
| Speculation Controls | 40/100 | Burn mechanics reduce circulating supply somewhat, but no explicit anti-speculation controls (e.g., trading limits) are described, and the token has shown high volatility. |
| Asset Backing | 32/100 | GST has no defined cap, reserve, or collateral backing; its value rests solely on in-app utility and burn demand. |
Summary: GST is a genuine in-game utility token with variable, activity-based earning and burn mechanics, but it is uncapped, unbacked by any reserve, and has exhibited notable speculative price behaviour.
5. Staking Mechanism
STEPN Green Satoshi Token on Solana 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: GST-SOL presents as a utility-driven move-to-earn game token with a transparent team and non-interest revenue model, but carries concerns around uncapped/unbacked supply, insider-heavy launch allocation, unresolved audit findings, and documented speculative trading behaviour.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar