NEXO
NEXO#88NEXO is the token of Nexo, a crypto lending and savings platform; holding it raises a client's loyalty tier.
Fails our Shariah screening. Needs caution: nature of the asset, excessive uncertainty (gharar), and benefit and harm (maslahah). Fails: interest (riba), business model, and usage.
- 2 pass
- 3 caution
- 3 fail
Verdict history
- Not halalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold NEXO?8 Shariah criteria
2 pass · 3 caution · 3 failNEXO's purpose is to earn its holders more interest and cheaper loans on the Nexo platform, and Nexo pays interest on NEXO itself.
Riba means interest or any fixed increase on a loan. A NEXO token in a personal wallet pays nothing by itself, but the token is built around interest. Nexo sets each client's loyalty tier by the share of NEXO in their portfolio (at least 10% for the top tier), and higher tiers earn more interest on savings (up to 15% a year) and pay less interest on credit lines. Nexo advertises up to 12% annual interest on NEXO placed in its savings, and up to 2% extra when a client takes interest in NEXO.
The token first paid holders 30% of Nexo's net profit, from a business built on lending; in June 2021 a holder vote replaced these dividends with daily interest of up to 12%. Holders therefore earn interest through the token, which is the fail case of this criterion. The score is not at the very bottom only because a holder who keeps NEXO outside the platform receives no payment.
NEXO has real but narrow utility as a membership token on one company's platform, and authoritative bodies disagree whether crypto tokens are property (mal).
NEXO runs no network of its own: it is an Ethereum token whose value rests on the benefits Nexo grants to holders, mainly loyalty tiers, cashback and interest. That is utility, not an empty record, and Nexo has operated since 2018, so this is not fail. But the utility is limited to one company's platform and is largely tied to interest-based products, which puts the score low in the caution band.
On whether such tokens are property (mal), Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council treats a digital currency without an underlying asset as a tradable good, while Darul Uloom Karachi (2026) holds crypto tokens are not property, Indonesia's MUI holds crypto is not valid to trade as a commodity without an underlying, and state fatwa bodies in Egypt, Turkey and the UAE have rejected cryptocurrency generally.
NEXO is not a gambling or meme token, and its thin trading suggests it is mostly held for platform benefits rather than for speculation.
Maysir means gambling, or gains that depend mainly on chance; ordinary price swings are not maysir. NEXO has no lottery, betting or casino mechanics, and it is not a meme token. Its main use is holding it on the Nexo platform to reach a loyalty tier. Trading is thin: on 27 September 2026 Etherscan showed about $2.3 million of daily volume against an on-chain market value of about $872 million, so speculative turnover does not dominate. Its price has swung widely, from a peak of about $4.07 in May 2021 to about $0.87, but volatility alone is not maysir.
The problems with NEXO lie in interest, not in gambling, so this criterion passes, low in the band.
Nexo's core business is interest-based lending and interest-paying savings, well above the 5% limit for clearly impermissible income.
For an exchange or platform token, the test looks at the income of the issuing company; income from interest is clearly impermissible, with a 5% limit. Nexo lends crypto and cash to clients against collateral through credit lines charging interest 'from 1.9% per year', and pays interest on savings deposits. The SEC's 2023 order found that Nexo used investors' crypto 'in various ways to generate income for its own business and to fund interest payments' on its Earn Interest Product.
Nexo publishes no revenue split; ShariaQuant estimates over a third of its revenue is loan interest, but even without that estimate, lending and interest-paying deposits are the platform's flagship products, so interest income is certainly far above 5%. The token is also directly tied to this income: Nexo said in 2022 that revenue from NEXO-collateralised credit would fund NEXO buybacks, and bought-back tokens may be used to pay interest in NEXO.
Supply is fixed and on-chain, but Nexo controls most of it, can release a third of supply at will, and publishes no revenue or current independent reserve attestation.
Gharar means excessive uncertainty or hidden terms. Some things are clear: the contract fixes supply at 1 billion NEXO and has no mint function. Control, however, is heavily concentrated. On 27 September 2026 about 354 million NEXO (35.4%) sat in the original allocation addresses, which only the contract owner can empty, with all vesting periods long over; Nexo's Corporate Treasury held 21.3%, its Investor Protection Reserve 11.5% and other Nexo-labelled wallets about 15.4%; the top 100 addresses held 97.9%. Data sites nevertheless report the full 1 billion as circulating.
Nexo publishes no revenue breakdown, and no current independent attestation of its reserves was found. This is partial opacity, near the bottom of caution; it is not fail, because the issuer cannot mint new tokens and the balances are visible on-chain.
NEXO's main purpose is to improve its holders' terms on interest-based savings and loans.
The usage criterion fails when the main purpose is interest-based finance. By Nexo's own description, the benefits of holding NEXO are a higher loyalty tier with higher savings interest and lower borrowing interest, interest on NEXO itself, and cashback. Cashback on card purchases and exchange trades, and simply transferring NEXO, are permissible in themselves, but they are secondary to the interest benefits that the loyalty tiers are built around. NEXO can also be pledged as collateral for interest-bearing credit lines.
Sharlife reached the same view in its screening, describing the token as the medium of a reward system of giving and earning usury.
NEXO can be bought with full payment and held in a personal wallet as an ordinary Ethereum token.
This criterion only asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible form, not whether the asset itself passed. NEXO is an ERC-20 token held by about 71,000 Ethereum addresses; it can be bought on spot markets, paid for in full and withdrawn to a personal wallet. It does not exist only as a leveraged or derivative wrapper. The score is not higher because spot liquidity is thin and much of the token's use happens inside Nexo's own custodial platform.
Nexo offers real financial services, but the token mainly promotes interest-based finance and the company has a US securities settlement on record.
Maslahah means weighing real benefit against real harm. On the benefit side, Nexo gives clients access to an exchange, payment cards with cashback and fiat on- and off-ramps, and has operated since 2018. On the harm side, the token's design draws holders deeper into interest-based savings and borrowing, and in January 2023 Nexo paid $45 million to US federal and state regulators over an unregistered interest-earning product, after which it left the US until February 2026.
NEXO is not mainly a tool for fraud, sanctions evasion or exploitation, so harm does not dominate under this criterion, but it is significant.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying NEXO with full payment and immediate delivery is available, but spot is acceptable only for a HALAL or DOUBTFUL asset. NEXO is rated HARAM because its purpose is tied to interest-based products, and a fully paid purchase does not change that.
No fund or exchange-traded product holding NEXO was found, so this route is not available. Any such fund would still carry the HARAM rating of the underlying token.
NEXO is not mainly used to pay for goods; Nexo card cashback is paid in crypto, but spending on the card does not require NEXO. Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit crypto as a means of payment, so this use is caution.
NEXO has no native staking: it is an Ethereum token and secures no network. What Nexo pays on NEXO is savings interest, not a reward for validation work, and it is assessed under lending and yield products.
Always fail: borrowing with leverage and deferred exchange without delivery (AAOIFI SS 20).
Always fail: futures, perpetuals and options are deferred exchange without delivery, with leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
Lending for a return is riba. Placing NEXO in Nexo savings lends it to the platform for interest, and pledging NEXO as collateral for a Nexo credit line means borrowing at interest.
Nexo pays up to 12% a year on NEXO held in savings and up to 2% extra when interest is taken in NEXO. This is a return on crypto lent to the platform, so it is interest and fails; in 2023 the SEC found that Nexo funded interest on its earlier Earn Interest Product by using client assets to generate income.
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.The NEXO token is rated as non-compliant (Haram) because it fails all three core Shariah compliance categories: business activity, token utility, and revenue purity.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.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 itThe meeting concluded that exchange tokens are compliant with Shariah principles, meaning they do not inherently pose any Shariah issues.We classified this utility token as non-Shariah compliant as its protocol and token are clearly built based on riba' system.As 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
7 exchanges from our coverage · no referral links
- BBybitCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$84.7KReliability7.1Halal productIslamic account
BinanceCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$633.95KReliability6.7Halal productShariah-compliant earn
GateCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$6.95KReliability5.9Halal productNo halal product
WhiteBITCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$126.92KReliability5.7Halal productNo halal product
MEXCCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$63.93KReliability4.7Halal productNo halal product
PionexCentralized · NEXO/USDTVolume 24h$96.7KReliability4.0Halal productNo halal product
BithumbCentralized · NEXO/KRWVolume 24h$35.48KReliability3.9Halal productNo halal product
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Listings as of Sep 18, 2026
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