Pi Network

Holding PI pays nothing, but mining is paid for app check-ins rather than network work, and lockup rewards pay more to those who lock more PI for longer.

Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. Simply holding PI earns nothing, and PI is not lent to borrowers by the protocol. New PI is issued as 'mining' rewards to users who check in daily in the mobile app; the mining rate adjusts to a yearly supply cap. This is not payment for validating transactions: running a node is a separate role. The Mainnet formula adds a Lockup Reward whose size depends on how long and how much of one's balance is locked, which resembles a predetermined return on locked capital, though it is paid from new issuance, not from a borrower.

PI runs on a live Mainnet with some in-app uses, but its real utility is limited, Hanoi police say it lacks real-world applications, and scholars disagree whether cryptocurrency is property (mal).

Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. PI has a working Mainnet since December 2021, opened to outside exchanges on 20 February 2025, and can be spent in Pi Browser apps and for App Studio app creation. Its utility is still thin: Hanoi police said in March 2025 that Pi currently lacks real-world applications and its valuation is self-determined.

PI is not a gambling token, but its exchange trading is dominated by perpetual futures and its price has swung from about $2.99 to $0.09.

Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and PI has no lottery or betting mechanics. The market around it is heavily speculative, though. In 24-hour tickers on 27 September 2026, perpetual futures were about two-thirds of PI volume on OKX and Bitget (about 60.8 million PI in perpetuals against 29.1 million on spot); PI is not listed on Binance or Bybit, so this covers the main venues but is a single-day snapshot.

The Core Team runs the network, the app and a venture arm, but it does not publish its revenue or how it uses its 20 billion PI and the Foundation reserve.

This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns, and whether any of that income is impermissible. Unlike a leaderless network, Pi has a clear operator: the Core Team runs the mining app, KYC, the Pi Browser and App Studio, holds a 20 billion PI allocation, and oversees a 10 billion PI Foundation reserve and 5 billion for liquidity. Its known income lines — App Studio fees paid in Pi and, per ShariaQuant, the Pi Ad Network — are service and advertising fees, and no interest or gambling revenue was found.

The supply cap and allocation are published, but media analysis links most of the supply to the Core Team, the team decides through KYC whose balances count, few validators were reported and the node code was not found in public.

Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Some things are disclosed: a 100 billion PI cap and a 65/10/5/20 allocation are in the whitepaper. Much else is not verifiable. The Core Team's 20 billion unlocks 'at the same pace' as community mining under a self-imposed mandate, not a published on-chain schedule. Mined balances only become Mainnet PI after the team's own KYC, and the whitepaper says balances of fake or duplicate users will be discarded; in September 2026 hundreds of thousands of accounts were still blocked in that process.

PI is used for in-app payments and app building, with no sign of interest-based use, but real-world use is small and much activity is exchange trading.

This criterion looks at what the network is actually used for. The intended uses are permissible: paying for goods and services in Pi Browser apps, paying for app creation in Pi App Studio, and staking PI on apps in the Ecosystem Directory. No interest-based lending market or gambling platform was found as a major use of the network. But the scale of real use is not published, and Hanoi police said in March 2025 that Pi lacked real-world applications. With usage largely unmeasured and exchange speculation prominent, the status is caution.

Pi brought tens of millions of people into crypto for free, but fake apps, scams and a long, opaque KYC process have caused real harm.

Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit: joining is free, and about 18 million people passed KYC, giving many first-time users a wallet and small in-app payments. The harm is significant. Hanoi police warned in March 2025 that fake Pi apps were used to collect user data and defraud users, and the Core Team itself warns that dealing with unlisted third-party services risks scams or fraud. Millions of users handed identity documents to the project, and hundreds of thousands still had balances blocked in September 2026.