Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does tensorprox involve interest?
tensorprox does not appear to rely on interest-bearing lending or fixed-rate debt instruments. Its revenue comes from fiat subscription fees for a real cybersecurity service, converted into TAO/alpha buybacks. For Muslim investors, the riba profile itself is not the primary concern here—the bigger issues lie elsewhere in transparency.
Assessment: Moderate Riba
Score: 66.6/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well tensorprox avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Revenue is generated from clients paying fiat for DDoS mitigation, billed in short increments based on bandwidth usage—a straightforward fee-for-service model with no interest component. Reported proceeds, after taxes and operating expenses, are funneled into TAO/alpha buybacks held in a treasury. This treasury reportedly "stakes" its holdings, but staking within Bittensor's architecture is reward-sharing tied to network emissions and validator performance, not a fixed-interest deposit product. No lending, borrowing, or interest-bearing financial instrument is described anywhere in the available material, which is a positive from a riba standpoint, though formal treasury documentation is thin.
Rewards to miners are explicitly performance-based: successful DDoS defenses are scored and compensated accordingly, making payouts variable rather than a guaranteed fixed return—a structure more consistent with permissible profit-sharing than riba. The treasury's practice of staking accumulated TAO/alpha and distributing rewards to "loyal holders" is described only in an informal founder interview, without documented rates, formulas, or lock-up terms. While the performance-linked design avoids the hallmarks of interest, the absence of formal reward-schedule documentation means investors cannot fully verify that variability is genuine rather than a disguised fixed yield.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does tensorprox involve?
tensorprox carries a moderate-to-elevated degree of uncertainty, stemming less from the core service concept and more from thin documentation around tokenomics and audits. Named founders and open-source code reduce some ambiguity, but missing distribution data and unaudited contracts increase it. On balance, caution is warranted before treating this as a well-documented investment.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 54.3/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
Unlike anonymous meme projects, tensorprox is led by two publicly named founders—Felix Eggstein (CEO) and Nabil Ratbi (CTO)—both maintaining visible LinkedIn presences and public commentary on the project. The codebase is open-source on GitHub, and a public whitepaper outlines the architecture and roadmap. This is a meaningful transparency advantage over anonymous or pseudonymous teams. However, independent third-party verification of the founders' track record or a formal corporate compliance history is absent from available sources, meaning confidence rests substantially on self-disclosed material rather than audited or externally verified records.
No audit of tensorprox's own smart contracts or subnet code by a named security firm could be identified in available sources; audit documents referencing Halborn and similar firms in the broader dataset concern entirely unrelated projects. This is a genuine gharar concern that should be stated plainly—an unaudited protocol carries inherent uncertainty regardless of the legitimacy of its underlying business. Additionally, the tokenomics/vesting page reportedly exists but its allocation table was empty at retrieval, leaving distribution, pre-mine, and vesting terms undocumented. These gaps compound uncertainty for prospective holders.
Maysir — Does tensorprox involve gambling or speculation?
tensorprox does not appear designed as a gambling or speculative instrument; its core function is a paid cybersecurity service with real clients. Some secondary-market trading speculation is inevitable once any token lists on exchanges, but this is incidental rather than the product's purpose. The underlying utility distinguishes it from maysir-oriented tokens.
Assessment: Moderate Maysir (High Risk)
Score: 62.9/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether tensorprox is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
tensorprox provides decentralized DDoS mitigation as a genuine cybersecurity-as-a-service offering, with clients paying real fiat fees billed in 15-minute increments for measurable bandwidth protection. Validators simulate attack traffic while miners run defense engines scored on real-time performance, creating a productive, service-oriented economic loop rather than a zero-sum betting mechanism. This functional utility—protecting real infrastructure for paying customers—is a meaningful distinguishing factor from purely speculative or gambling-style tokens, and it anchors the token's value proposition in productive economic activity rather than chance-based payouts.
Against this genuine utility, the token is also listed on exchanges such as LBank and tracked on CoinGecko, meaning it is subject to ordinary secondary-market trading and price speculation like any listed asset. Such trading behavior by third parties reflects general market speculation rather than a feature designed into the protocol itself, and it should not be held against tensorprox's own Shariah standing. The absence of leveraged derivatives or gambling mechanics native to the protocol, combined with real subscription revenue, tips the balance toward utility-driven design rather than maysir, even as normal market speculation persists around any tradable token.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 78/100 | Both co-founders are named with verifiable professional backgrounds and public LinkedIn activity, making the team traceable and accountable. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 60/100 | No fraud, hack, or regulatory action tied to tensorprox appears in these sources, but this is an absence of negative findings rather than a positive, independently verified clean record. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 82/100 | The subnet provides a concrete, paid DDoS-protection service to real clients, evidencing genuine utility rather than pure hype. |
| Ethical Practices | 88/100 | The protocol's own design is a cybersecurity/DDoS-defense service, which touches no prohibited industry. |
Summary: The project has a named, credentialed two-person founding team with a traceable professional background and no reported fraud or regulatory issues in the sources reviewed.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 85/100 | The base protocol's business is cybersecurity-as-a-service, a sector with no inherent Shariah conflict. |
| Transaction Fees | 60/100 | Fees are client subscription payments funneled into buybacks per one informal source; the precise fee-handling mechanics (burn vs distribution) are not formally documented. |
| Treasury Assets | 60/100 | The treasury reportedly holds TAO/alpha from buybacks rather than conventional interest-bearing instruments, but composition details are thin and drawn from a single informal source. |
| Revenue Model | 82/100 | Revenue comes from real fiat service fees for cybersecurity protection, not from interest-based activity. |
| Transparency | 82/100 | The codebase and whitepaper are publicly available, supporting transparency. |
| Governance | 45/100 | Governance is largely defined by the small founding team as "subnet creator," indicating a degree of centralization typical of Bittensor subnets, inferred rather than explicitly quantified. |
| Launch Fairness | 50/100 (low evidence) | No details on launch fairness or pre-mine specific to tensorprox could be found in these sources. |
| Token Distribution | 50/100 (low evidence) | A tokenomics/vesting reference page exists but its allocation data was not populated in the retrieved material, so distribution could not be established. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 70/100 | The presence of a real paying-client service suggests utility-dominant design, though no quantified speculation/utility ratio is given. |
Summary: tensorprox operates an open-source, real-world DDoS-protection subnet on Bittensor with a described but only partially documented revenue-to-treasury buyback flow and team-led governance.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 82/100 | Cited revenue is service-fee based rather than riba-derived. |
| Financial Status | 50/100 | Exchange/market listings confirm activity but no detailed financial stability data (market cap trend, volume) is available. |
| Interest Assessment | 82/100 | The protocol is a cybersecurity marketplace with no lending/borrowing function described at the base layer. |
| Audit Quality | 15/100 (low evidence) | No audit of tensorprox's own code by a named firm could be located; all Halborn-style audit documents retrieved pertain to unrelated projects. |
Summary: Revenue stems from genuine service fees rather than interest, but no audit of tensorprox's own code and only thin market-stability data could be found in these sources.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 75/100 | The token functions as a reward/incentive mechanism tied to real cybersecurity work, indicating genuine utility purpose. |
| Governance Rights | 30/100 (low evidence) | No specific tokenholder governance rights for tensorprox are described; only generic Bittensor network-level staking/weighting is mentioned. |
| Rewards Distribution | 72/100 | Rewards are described as performance-based for defense effectiveness plus a buyback-sharing model, indicating variability, though the exact formula is undocumented. |
| Speculation Controls | 30/100 (low evidence) | No anti-speculation controls (vesting limits, sale restrictions) are mentioned anywhere in the sources. |
| Asset Backing | 58/100 | Backing is inferred from service revenue and TAO-linked buybacks rather than confirmed by formal documentation. |
Summary: The token functions as a performance-linked utility/reward token for cybersecurity work, though explicit governance rights and anti-speculation controls are not documented.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 50/100 | Staking appears non-custodial per general Bittensor mechanics, but SN91-specific mechanism details are not confirmed. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 30/100 (low evidence) | No source discusses an Islamic contract classification (Mudarabah/Wakalah/Qard) for the staking or reward-sharing arrangement, leaving the core question unresolved. |
| Rewards Structure | 55/100 | Rewards are described as tied to real service revenue and performance rather than fixed rates, but the structure lacks full documentation. |
| Documentation | 42/100 | General Bittensor documentation and the tensorprox whitepaper exist, but specific staking/reward-sharing terms for SN91's treasury mechanism are only described informally. |
| Shariah Alignment | 35/100 (low evidence) | The absence of any Shariah-specific discussion or contract classification for the staking/reward mechanism leaves a core question unresolved. |
Summary: A staking-like mechanism exists via Bittensor's network-level staking and the project's own treasury buyback-and-share model, but SN91-specific terms, custody, and Islamic contract classification remain undocumented.
Overall Assessment: tensorprox presents as a legitimate, utility-driven cybersecurity subnet with a credible team and real revenue model, but gaps in audit evidence, distribution data, and staking documentation leave several Shariah-relevant questions unresolved rather than answered.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar