Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does ZoidPay involve interest?
ZoidPay's ecosystem blends permissible fee-sharing with an explicit interest-lending function: "Banking Validator" operators reportedly lend pooled ZPAY and earn interest on those loans. This is not incidental third-party behavior but a described feature of the staking/pool structure itself. For Muslim investors, this interest-bearing lending component is a direct riba concern that cannot be waved away as merely variable market activity.
Assessment: Riba Dominant
Score: 38/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well ZoidPay avoids interest-based mechanisms.
Revenue sources cited include marketplace/cashback fees from retail spending and card usage, which are permissible fee-for-service income. However, sources also describe DeFi "loans and BNPL options" as native ecosystem features, and pool operators earning interest on loaned-out funds. This indicates the base protocol, not just external dApps, generates income through interest-bearing lending. Treasury composition is undisclosed, so whether idle reserves themselves sit in interest-bearing instruments cannot be confirmed, but the lending-interest revenue stream itself is a clear riba exposure embedded in ZoidPay's own design.
Staking rewards are described as a mix: variable APY (15%-26%+, boosted by NFTs and "superfarm" rates) tied to pool activity, alongside "guaranteed" cashback language suggesting fixed-return expectations. More significantly, pool/validator operators can "give out loans from the pool and earn interest," meaning some staking yield is sourced from interest income rather than trading fees or cashback-sharing alone. This hybrid reward sourcing—part fee-based, part interest-based—means the staking mechanism cannot be cleanly classified as profit-and-loss-sharing; the interest-linked portion represents a genuine riba concern within the reward structure itself.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does ZoidPay involve?
ZoidPay carries moderate uncertainty: the team and business model are transparent and traceable, but financial disclosures, audits, and tokenomics documentation are thin. The named leadership reduces gharar considerably, while missing audit confirmation and unclear reward mechanics increase it. On balance, informational uncertainty here stems more from disclosure gaps than from deliberate obfuscation.
Assessment: Excessive Gharar (High Uncertainty)
Score: 38.6/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
ZoidPay's founders, Eduard Oneci (CEO) and Vasile Burcin (COO), are named and verifiable through LinkedIn, press interviews, and a Romanian business-press profile, with Oneci's prior ventures (Rewordly, Cardanti) documented. This transparency substantially lowers gharar relative to anonymous projects. However, full protocol code beyond the ZoidCore SDK is not confirmed as open-source, and treasury composition, vesting schedules, and detailed token allocation breakdowns are absent from available sources, leaving meaningful gaps in disclosure despite credible, identifiable leadership.
No audit specifically naming ZoidPay's own smart contracts could be confirmed in available sources; a retrieved Halborn audit pertains to an unrelated project ("Substance Exchange"), and another citation is merely Halborn's general audit portal. This absence of a project-specific security audit is a plain and material gharar concern for any DeFi protocol handling staked funds and pooled lending. Additionally, custody terms, lock-up durations, and slashing conditions for staking are not documented beyond informal community commentary, leaving key risk parameters undisclosed to prospective participants.
Maysir — Does ZoidPay involve gambling or speculation?
ZoidPay is not designed as a speculative or gambling instrument; its stated purpose is enabling crypto-based retail payments, card issuance, and DeFi utility access. Some promotional APY marketing and secondary-market trading introduce speculative behavior, but this reflects market conduct rather than the protocol's core design. On balance, ZoidPay's own function centers on payments utility rather than chance-based wagering.
Assessment: Maysir / Qimar (Gambling)
Score: 48.4/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether ZoidPay is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
ZoidPay's core offering—crypto spending at major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay, a non-custodial wallet, a browser extension, and the ZoidCore developer toolkit—represents genuine productive utility rather than a game of chance. ZPAY's role in reducing transaction fees and unlocking cashback/staking access ties token value to real usage rather than pure price wagering. This functional, service-oriented design distinguishes ZoidPay from maysir-based instruments, even though, as with any traded asset, third parties may still speculate on its price in secondary markets.
Heavy promotional APY marketing (15%-26%+ with NFT boosts and "superfarm" rates) and volatile, seemingly illiquid exchange listings (near-zero circulating supply reported on some platforms) suggest speculative trading dynamics surrounding ZPAY. Yet this speculative activity occurs in secondary markets and community promotion rather than being intrinsic to the protocol's payments and cashback utility. Genuine retail-use-case adoption and named corporate backing weigh against classifying ZoidPay itself as a maysir instrument, though prospective holders should recognize that market-level speculation remains a real, separate risk factor.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 82/100 | Founders are named, credentialed, and traceable across LinkedIn, press, and interviews with a documented multi-year track record. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 45/100 | No fraud or rug-pull action against ZoidPay itself was found, but market-data anomalies and heavy promotional yield marketing were noted without independent verification. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 72/100 | Multiple sources describe a functioning crypto-payments ecosystem with cards, wallet, marketplace, and merchant partnerships beyond pure speculation. |
| Ethical Practices | 38/100 | The ecosystem's own design explicitly includes interest-bearing lending within its staking pools, which is a self-designed feature rather than third-party misuse. |
Summary: The founding team is publicly named and credentialed with a multi-year track record, and no fraud or enforcement action against ZoidPay itself was found in these sources.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 68/100 | The core protocol operates in payments/e-commerce/fintech, a sector not inherently prohibited, though it layers interest-based lending on top. |
| Transaction Fees | 50/100 | Sources mention "zero transaction fees" and strategic burns but give no detailed breakdown of fee flows. |
| Treasury Assets | 35/100 (low evidence) | No information on treasury composition or whether treasury holdings are interest-bearing could be found. |
| Revenue Model | 38/100 | Revenue appears to include fee/cashback income alongside explicit lending interest from pool operations, indicating a partly interest-based revenue model. |
| Transparency | 48/100 | A whitepaper and an open developer SDK exist, but core protocol contracts and detailed disclosures are not clearly documented in these sources. |
| Governance | 28/100 (low evidence) | No description of decentralized governance or token-holder voting was found; the project appears company-controlled. |
| Launch Fairness | 40/100 | An early private token sale and a large investor funding round preceded public trading, suggesting insider advantage rather than a fully fair launch. |
| Token Distribution | 32/100 (low evidence) | Total supply is fixed at 700 million ZPAY, but no breakdown of team/investor/community allocation or vesting was found. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 48/100 | The token has described utility uses, but community content is dominated by high-APY farming and pool speculation narratives. |
Summary: ZoidPay operates a crypto-payments ecosystem with cards, wallet, and marketplace tools, but governance, treasury composition, and fair-launch details are largely undisclosed in these sources.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 35/100 | Sources explicitly describe pool operators earning interest from loans, indicating riba-based revenue at the protocol level. |
| Financial Status | 42/100 | A large funding round is reported, but exchange data shows circulating-supply anomalies that undermine confidence in financial transparency. |
| Interest Assessment | 25/100 | The ecosystem explicitly offers loans and interest-earning lending through its own staking pools, not merely via third-party apps. |
| Audit Quality | 12/100 (low evidence) | No audit of ZoidPay's own contracts was found in these sources; the only Halborn audit located belongs to an unrelated project. |
Summary: The protocol's own staking pools reportedly generate revenue partly through interest-based lending, and no audit of ZoidPay's contracts could be found.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 70/100 | ZPAY is consistently described as a utility token for payments, fee discounts, staking, and cashback access. |
| Governance Rights | N/A | No governance/voting rights for ZPAY holders are described in any source, and this appears to be a simple absence rather than a disclosed feature. |
| Rewards Distribution | 35/100 | Rewards are described as variable APY in places but also as "guaranteed" cashback elsewhere, blurring the fixed/variable distinction. |
| Speculation Controls | 35/100 | Token burns for price support are mentioned, but the dominant community narrative centers on high-yield pool farming with little other anti-speculation design. |
| Asset Backing | 42/100 | The token's value rests on described ecosystem utility rather than any disclosed reserve or asset backing. |
Summary: ZPAY functions as a described utility token for payments and staking access, but reward mechanics mix variable and "guaranteed" elements without disclosed governance rights.
5. Staking Mechanism (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Mechanism Type | 42/100 | Staking is described as pool/validator-based with wallet connection, but custody, exact lock-up, and slashing terms are not clearly documented. |
| Islamic Contract Classification | 20/100 | Pool "banking validators" are explicitly said to issue loans and earn interest, creating an unresolved Qard-with-increment concern at the core of the mechanism. |
| Rewards Structure | 32/100 | Rewards combine activity-based fee/cashback sharing with explicit lending interest and "guaranteed" cashback language, mixing variable and fixed characteristics. |
| Documentation | 30/100 (low evidence) | No official ZoidPay documentation detailing staking risks and terms was found; available information comes mainly from third-party commentary. |
| Shariah Alignment | 22/100 | The explicit interest-lending feature within the staking pools represents a decisive, unresolved Shariah question at the mechanism's core. |
Summary: ZoidPay has a native pool-based staking mechanism whose validators can lend funds and earn interest, raising an unresolved core Shariah question about its classification.
Overall Assessment: ZoidPay appears to be a genuine, team-led fintech project with real payment utility, but its native staking/lending design and lack of a confirmed audit or governance disclosure leave significant open Shariah and transparency questions.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar