Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does Usual involve interest?
Usual's core revenue engine is interest income from US Treasury Bills backing its USD0 stablecoin, which is then distributed to USUAL stakers. This is not an edge-case exposure but the protocol's stated primary revenue mechanism. For Muslim investors, this places Usual in clear tension with riba prohibitions and warrants avoidance until the collateral base shifts to Shariah-compliant assets.
Assessment: Riba Dominant
Score: 24.5/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well Usual avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Usual's documentation explicitly states that USD0 is backed by real-world-asset collateral "primarily US Treasury Bills, held as on-chain verifiable collateral." Treasury Bills are a fixed-income sovereign debt instrument whose return is definitionally interest. The protocol's "Revenue Switch" routes this Treasury-Bill yield to USUAL stakers weekly in USD0. Because the entire revenue-sharing proposition is contingent on interest income generated by government debt holdings, the underlying cash flow feeding token holders is riba in origin, regardless of how it is repackaged or distributed at the protocol layer.
Staking rewards are dual-sourced: a roughly fixed daily share (~22–22.5%) of USUAL emissions, and a variable weekly USD0 distribution tied to actual Treasury-Bill yield. The emission-based portion resembles inflationary token distribution rather than interest per se, but the revenue-share portion is a direct pass-through of interest income, which cannot be reclassified as profit-sharing simply because it flows through a DeFi mechanism. A 10% unstaking fee, partly redistributed to remaining stakers, is a structural feature but does not alter the interest-based nature of the underlying reward source.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does Usual involve?
Usual carries moderate uncertainty: the mechanics of USD0, USUAL, and USUALx are documented in reasonable technical detail, but key disclosure gaps remain around team identity and tokenomics distribution. This mix of documented mechanics and undisclosed governance basics means gharar is present but not extreme, and the protocol should not be assumed either fully transparent or fully opaque.
Assessment: Excessive Gharar (High Uncertainty)
Score: 49.7/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
No source material identifies Usual's founders, team members, or their credentials, leaving team transparency unestablished. This absence is notable given the protocol's stated ambitions around Treasury-backed RWA issuance, an area where regulatory and custodial trust typically hinges on identifiable, accountable operators. No information on open-source repository status, code licensing, or initial token distribution and vesting schedules is available in the reviewed documentation either. These gaps do not confirm wrongdoing, but they leave investors unable to verify accountability structures that would normally reduce uncertainty around who controls upgrades, treasury custody, and governance parameters.
Usual has undergone multiple named security reviews: audits by Halborn and Sherlock (a public audit competition format), plus a Spearbit Cantina report titled "Usual Pegasus Phase 1" covering USUAL, USUALx, USD0/bUSD0, and DAO Collateral contracts. This is a genuinely positive signal relative to unaudited protocols. However, no audit dates are disclosed in the retrieved documentation, so it is impossible to confirm whether these reviews reflect the current, deployed contract versions or an earlier iteration. Investors should treat audit recency as an open question rather than assume continuous coverage.
Maysir — Does Usual involve gambling or speculation?
Usual is not designed as a speculative or gambling-oriented instrument; it functions as an RWA-backed stablecoin and revenue-sharing governance system. Genuine productive utility — Treasury-collateralized stablecoin issuance and yield distribution — distinguishes it from zero-sum wagering, though secondary-market trading of USUAL itself can still carry speculative behavior independent of protocol design.
Assessment: Maysir / Qimar (Gambling)
Score: 48.6/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether Usual is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
Usual's foundational function is stablecoin issuance backed by verifiable real-world collateral, with USUAL serving as a claim on protocol revenue and a governance instrument via staking. This is a productive, asset-backed economic activity rather than a chance-based payout mechanism. Rewards are tied to actual yield generation and protocol emissions schedules rather than random outcomes, and the staking/locking structure (including the Locking Module and unstaking fee) is designed to align long-term holder incentives with protocol health rather than to encourage short-term wagering.
Against this genuine utility, USUAL trades on open secondary markets where price volatility and leverage-driven speculation are common features of DeFi governance tokens generally, not unique to Usual's own design. Such third-party trading behavior does not stem from any built-in gambling mechanic within the protocol itself and should not be read as evidence of maysir in Usual's core design. The more materially relevant tension for Muslim investors remains the riba-based Treasury-Bill revenue source rather than any speculative-game structure within the protocol.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 30/100 (low evidence) | The sources give no names, credentials, or backgrounds for Usual's founding team, so team transparency cannot be established either way. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 50/100 (low evidence) | No fraud, hack, or rug-pull evidence specific to Usual appears in the sources, but no clean track-record confirmation exists either, so this cannot be assessed. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 75/100 | Sources describe a functioning RWA-backed stablecoin and revenue-sharing protocol with documented mechanics, indicating genuine utility rather than pure hype. |
| Ethical Practices | 25/100 | The protocol's own design centers on holding and monetizing US Treasury Bills, an interest-bearing instrument, as core collateral generating the yield distributed to token holders. |
Summary: The sources identify no team members or credentials and no fraud/regulatory history for Usual, leaving legitimacy partly unverifiable despite the project appearing to be a genuine RWA-backed protocol rather than a meme coin.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 25/100 | The base protocol's core business is issuing a stablecoin whose collateral and revenue are explicitly Treasury-Bill yield, placing its core activity in an interest-based sector. |
| Transaction Fees | 55/100 | Only a staking-related unstaking fee (10%, partly redistributed to stakers) is documented; general transaction-fee handling at the base protocol level is not described in the sources. |
| Treasury Assets | 10/100 | Treasury composition is explicitly stated as primarily US Treasury Bills, an interest-bearing conventional debt instrument. |
| Revenue Model | 10/100 | The stated revenue model is yield generated by Treasury Bill collateral distributed to holders, which is interest-based revenue. |
| Transparency | 55/100 | Public documentation and multiple published audit reports exist, but the sources do not confirm the code's open-source licensing status. |
| Governance | 50/100 | Governance access is tied to staking and a DAO reportedly sets parameters like the unstaking fee, but the sources do not detail governance decentralization or voting structure. |
| Launch Fairness | 50/100 (low evidence) | No information on launch fairness, pre-mine, or initial sale structure for Usual appears in the sources. |
| Token Distribution | 50/100 (low evidence) | No token distribution percentages or allocation breakdown for USUAL are given in the sources. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 60/100 | The token carries documented governance and revenue-claim utility, and emissions are tied to real usage metrics (TVL, volume) rather than being purely speculative, though speculative trading dynamics are not excluded. |
Summary: Usual operates an RWA-backed stablecoin (USD0) with a governance/revenue token (USUAL) and a staking layer, but launch fairness, distribution, and open-source details are undocumented in the sources.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 10/100 | Protocol revenue is explicitly derived from Treasury Bill yield, an interest-based income source. |
| Financial Status | 50/100 (low evidence) | No market capitalization, price stability, or financial health data specific to Usual is present in the sources. |
| Interest Assessment | 10/100 | The protocol's Revenue Switch passes through interest income from Treasury Bills to token holders, making interest a core element of the protocol's economics. |
| Audit Quality | 60/100 | Named firms Halborn and Sherlock (plus a Spearbit Cantina report) conducted audits/competitions covering core contracts, though exact dates are not stated in the retrieved pages. |
Summary: Protocol revenue and native "yield" come directly from US Treasury Bill interest passed through to token holders, and while named auditors (Halborn, Sherlock, Spearbit) reviewed the contracts, audit dates and broader financial stability data are not established.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 75/100 | USUAL is described as a token representing ownership of protocol revenue with governance function, not a meme token. |
| Governance Rights | 75/100 | Staking (USUALx) is explicitly described as granting governance access. |
| Rewards Distribution | 55/100 | Rewards combine a roughly fixed daily-emission allocation with a variable, revenue-dependent USD0 distribution, making the mechanism partly fixed and partly variable. |
| Speculation Controls | 65/100 | A 10% unstaking fee (partly redistributed) and a locking requirement for revenue access function as real anti-speculation/holding incentives. |
| Asset Backing | 25/100 | The token's value is backed by a documented claim on protocol revenue, but that revenue is itself backed by interest-bearing US Treasury Bills rather than halal assets. |
Summary: USUAL is a utility/governance token with a mixed fixed-emission and variable-revenue reward structure, but its ultimate backing is interest income from Treasury Bills rather than halal assets.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 65/100 | Staking uses a transferable, on-chain liquid-staking token (USUALx) with a documented exchange-rate mechanism and a separate locking module, indicating reasonably clear, non-custodial terms. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 20/100 | Because a core reward stream is a pass-through of interest income from Treasury Bills, the staking arrangement does not map cleanly onto Mudarabah/Wakalah and raises an unresolved Qard-with-increment-type concern. |
| Rewards Structure | 25/100 | Rewards derive partly from a fixed emission-share allocation and partly from revenue tied to interest-bearing collateral, rather than purely variable, halal-sourced performance income. |
| Documentation | 75/100 | Usual's documentation clearly describes exchange-rate mechanics, fee percentages, and emission shares for the staking product. |
| Shariah Alignment | 20/100 | The unresolved question of interest-derived rewards flowing through the staking mechanism is a decisive, unaddressed Shariah concern rather than a resolved structure. |
Summary: Usual has a documented, liquid, non-custodial staking mechanism (USUALx) with clear fee and emission terms, but because rewards partly derive from Treasury Bill interest, its Islamic-contract classification remains an open question.
Overall Assessment: Usual appears to be a functioning, audited, documented RWA-stablecoin project rather than a meme coin, but its core revenue and staking rewards are structurally tied to conventional interest income, which is the central unresolved Shariah concern for this coin.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar