Dai
DAI#25DAI is a decentralised US dollar stablecoin created by the Sky protocol, formerly MakerDAO.
- Market cap
- $4.6B
- Volume 24h
- $107.42M
- All-time high
- $1.22
- −18.05% from ATH
- Circulating supply
- 4.59B
Fails our Shariah screening. Needs caution: nature of the asset, excessive uncertainty (gharar), and usage. Fails: interest (riba) and business model.
- 3 pass
- 3 caution
- 2 fail
Verdict history
- Not halalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Dai?8 Shariah criteria
3 pass · 3 caution · 2 failDAI's system is built to pass interest to holders: the Dai Savings Rate, launched with DAI in 2019, pays depositors out of stability fees and other interest-type protocol income.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. A person who simply holds DAI receives nothing extra. But the Dai Savings Rate has been part of DAI's design since the current token launched in November 2019: any holder can deposit DAI and earn a rate set by Sky governance, paid out of the protocol surplus that stability fees on vault loans build up. The protocol's income comes from interest-type sources: stability fees on loans, the lending and credit strategies of Sky Agents (the largest source), yield on the USDC held in the Peg Stability Module, and real-world asset vaults.
Essentially all of the backing earns interest, far above the 30% limit for interest-bearing assets when that income reaches holders. Any DAI can also be converted 1:1 to USDS and staked as sUSDS, which held $5.52 billion of the $10.04 billion USDS supply at the end of June 2026. Because the token's own savings system pays interest-based income to holders, the criterion fails, the same way as for other stablecoins whose staked version passes protocol interest to holders. The score sits in the upper part of the fail band because plain holding pays nothing, the savings rate pays only part of protocol income, and uptake of the DAI savings wrapper is small: about 139 million sDAI (roughly $164 million, under 4% of DAI supply) on 27 September 2026.
DAI is a working dollar token backed by collateral, but no one is obliged to redeem it for dollars and official bodies disagree on whether crypto is property (mal).
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. DAI has real use as a dollar-stable token, and $12.3 billion of collateral stood behind DAI and USDS at the end of June 2026. Unlike a fiat stablecoin, though, there is no issuer that must redeem DAI for dollars: its peg rests on over-collateralised loans, a 1:1 swap with USDC and governance-managed assets.
Official bodies also disagree about crypto in general: Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council (2020) treats digital currency without an underlying asset as tradable goods on registered exchanges, while Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2017), Turkey's Diyanet (2017), the UAE General Authority of Islamic Affairs (2018) and Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit dealing in it. None of them names DAI.
- Sky Protocol: Capital Allocation & the Sky Savings Rate (Sky Ecosystem Insights)
- Sky Protocol Achieves 2nd Straight Quarter with Over $100M in Revenue (Sky Frontier Foundation, PR Newswire)
- Resolutions of the Shariah Advisory Council of the SC - Securities Commission Malaysia
- Keputusan Ijtima' Ulama Komisi Fatwa se-Indonesia VII tentang Hukum Cryptocurrency - Majelis Ulama Indonesia
DAI is designed to hold a steady dollar value and is used for payments, savings and settlement, not for betting on price.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. DAI has no chance-based payout, and because it tracks the dollar there is little to speculate on in holding it; it is mainly used to hold value, pay, and settle trades in decentralised finance. Its price has strayed from $1 in stress, from $0.88 in March 2023 to $1.22 in March 2020, but ordinary price risk is not maysir. Leverage built with DAI loans is a use of the borrowing system, counted under riba and usage.
The protocol earns mainly from stability fees on loans and from lending, credit and fixed-income investments, far above the 5% limit for impermissible income.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns. Sky's documentation describes its revenue engine as the spread between the stability fees it charges borrowers and the yield it pays savers, and says its collateral includes structured credit, fixed income, on-chain and fintech lending and real-world assets, much of it placed through Sky Agents such as Spark and Grove. Stability fees accrue on vault debt and become protocol surplus. The Sky Frontier Foundation reported $107.35 million of gross revenue for the second quarter of 2026.
An exact split by source was not obtained, but interest on loans and interest-bearing investments is the protocol's main business, well above the 5% threshold.
DAI's contract and on-chain vaults are public and cannot be changed, but a large part of the backing sits in off-chain and agent-managed investments that are harder to verify.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Much of DAI is transparent: the token contract on Ethereum is verified, is not upgradeable and has no freeze or blacklist function, supply is public, and crypto vaults can be checked on-chain. Governance changes go through public votes. The uncertainty lies in the rest of the backing: real-world assets, USDC held through the Peg Stability Module, and capital deployed by independent Sky Agents into credit and fixed-income strategies depend on off-chain parties, and no primary breakdown of the collateral mix was found.
The peg has also broken briefly under stress (March 2020 and March 2023).
DAI is used as a dollar for payments and trading, but a notable share of its use is borrowing against collateral and earning the savings rate.
This criterion looks at what the asset is actually used for. DAI serves as a dollar-stable means of holding value, paying and settling trades on decentralised exchanges, which are permissible uses. A notable part of its life, though, is interest-based: it is minted through fee-bearing loans, deposited into the Dai Savings Rate, and lent in DeFi markets. The main purpose is not impermissible, so the status is caution rather than fail.
DAI can be bought outright, held in one's own wallet and swapped 1:1 into USDS, though Binance has replaced it with USDS.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. DAI is an ordinary ERC-20 token held by about 700,000 Ethereum addresses; it can be bought with full payment on exchanges and decentralised exchanges, withdrawn to a self-custody wallet, and converted to USDS and back at a fixed 1:1 rate with no fee. Binance converted its users' DAI to USDS by mid-2026, so on some large exchanges buying DAI now means buying USDS. Ownership does not depend on derivatives or leverage.
DAI gives open access to a dollar token that no single company can freeze, with moderate harm beyond the interest counted elsewhere.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. DAI offers anyone a transparent, dollar-stable token whose contract cannot freeze or seize balances, which helps people without good access to dollars and supports open payment and settlement. Its harms are the spread of interest-based credit and leverage, already counted under riba and business model, and peg risk in market crashes. No link to fraud or sanctions evasion as a main use was found.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying DAI with full payment and immediate delivery is widely available, but spot is acceptable only for a HALAL or DOUBTFUL asset. DAI is rated HARAM because its system is built on interest-bearing loans and passes interest-based income to holders who deposit, and a fully paid purchase does not change that.
No exchange-traded fund holding DAI was found. Any fund that lends DAI or earns the savings rate on it would fail.
DAI is used for payments and settlement, but tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and several countries ban crypto payments.
DAI has no validation staking. Products called staking for DAI are usually deposits into the savings rate or lending pools, which pay interest-type returns and should be judged as yield or lending.
Margin trading with DAI is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
Futures, perpetuals and options on or settled in DAI always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending DAI on DeFi markets or exchanges pays interest from borrowers, and borrowing DAI from a Sky vault means paying a stability fee on the loan. Both are riba.
The Dai Savings Rate, sUSDS and similar products pay a return funded by stability fees and interest-bearing investments, so they fail. Screening firms that reviewed DAI all reject the savings rate.
Scholars quotes
Penggunaan cryptocurrency sebagai mata uang hukumnya haram, karena mengandung gharar (ketidakjelasan), dharar (bahaya) dan bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang nomor 7 tahun 2011 tentang Mata Uang dan Peraturan Bank Indonesia nomor 17 tahun 2015 tentang Kewajiban Penggunaan Rupiah di Wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.Sebagaimana mata wang yang lain, mata wang digital hendaklah tidak digunakan sebagai bayaran kepada barangan, perkhidmatan dan aktiviti tidak patuh Syariah seperti pembelian dadah, pelacuran, perjudian dan pendanaan aktiviti keganasan serta penggubahan wang haram.The SAC has also resolved that investment and trading of Digital Assets that fulfil the above requirements and which are traded on Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) registered with SC are permissible.Third: In light of the above and given the significant risks associated with this type of currencies and the instability of their transactions, the Council of the Academy recommends pursuing research and studies on issues affecting its ruling.Bitcoin is a digital currency that does not meet the legal and Sharia criteria that make it a currency subject to the rulings of dealing with official legal currencies recognized internationally.بناءً على ذلك: فلا يجوز شرعًا تداول عملة "البتكوين" والتعامل من خلالها بالبيعِ والشراءِ والإجارةِ وغيرها، بل يُمنع من الاشتراكِ فيها؛ لعدمِ اعتبارِها كوسيطٍ مقبولٍ للتبادلِ من الجهاتِ المخُتصَّةِ، ولِمَا تشتمل عليه من الضررِ الناشئ عن الغررِ والجهالةِ والغشِّ في مَصْرِفها ومِعْيارها وقِيمتها، فضلًا عما تؤدي إليه ممارستُها من مخاطرَ عاليةٍ على الأفراد والدول.Simply buying and holding the token is deemed Haram because it directly supports a protocol whose core business activity and primary revenue generation are explicitly based on interest-bearing lending and traditional finance treasury yields.According to research and opinion of experts so far, cryptocurrency is not considered ‘ maal ’ (wealth) in Sharia.Muhammadiyah memandang transaksi dan investasi kripto pada dasarnya mubah (boleh) tetapi dengan syarat tertentu.While buying the DAI token on an exchange may be considered halal, people should proceed with caution when getting involved in the DAI ecosystem.The opinion on this is the same as doing the same with any halal assets such as shares – 1) is permissible, 2) is more debatable and there are differing opinions on short-term trading.Our current position is 'tawaquf'; we can't say it is halal or haram, but we say it is better not to engage in itAs I mentioned at the beginning of this article it is not necessary to substantiate the permissibility of something as long as there are no prohibited factors involved in it or surrounding it.AI-assisted analysis checked against sources. Not a fatwa or investment advice.
Where it trades
2 exchanges from our coverage · no referral links
KrakenCentralized · DAI/USDTVolume 24h$428.01KReliability7.4Halal productNo halal product
GeminiCentralized · DAI/USDVolume 24h$536.75Reliability6.2Halal productNo halal product
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Listings as of Sep 17, 2026
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