Gram (prev. Toncoin)
GRAM#28Gram (formerly Toncoin) is the coin of The Open Network, a proof-of-stake blockchain tied to Telegram, used to pay fees and secure the network.
- Market cap
- $4.26B
- Volume 24h
- $141.72M
- All-time high
- $8.25
- −81.67% from ATH
- Circulating supply
- 2.81B
Does not clear all 8 Shariah criteria. Needs caution: nature of the asset, gambling (maysir), and excessive uncertainty (gharar).
- 5 pass
- 3 caution
- 0 fail
Verdict history
- DoubtfulCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Gram (prev. Toncoin)?8 Shariah criteria
5 pass · 3 caution · 0 failHolding Gram pays nothing; staking rewards are paid for validating the network, not as interest on a loan.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. Simply holding Gram earns nothing. The only native return is staking: validators lock Gram in the network's election contract for each round and receive new coins for every block plus half of transaction fees, and a validator that misbehaves can be fined. Running a validator needed at least 300,000 GRAM on 27 September 2026, so most holders join through nominator pools or liquid staking, which pass the validator's reward on after a fee.
Yields rose sharply after the April 2026 speed upgrade (Pavel Durov spoke of competition for '20%+ APR'; CoinShares estimated about 16.7% gross), but they are still variable and tied to validation work, not a lending return.
TON is a working network and Gram has clear uses, but official religious bodies disagree on whether cryptocurrency is property (mal).
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. TON clearly works: it has run since November 2019, confirms transactions in under a second since April 2026 and carries about $735 million of stablecoins. Gram is needed to pay fees and to stake for consensus. Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council (2020), for assets under its supervision, treats digital currency without an underlying asset as goods ('urudh) that may be traded on registered exchanges.
Other tier-1 bodies disagree: Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2017), the UAE General Authority of Islamic Affairs (2018), Turkey's Diyanet (2017) and Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit dealing in cryptocurrencies, and the OIC Fiqh Academy (2019) deferred a ruling. None of them names TON or Gram. Because authoritative bodies disagree, this criterion cannot be 'pass'.
- Resolutions of the Shariah Advisory Council of the SC - Securities Commission Malaysia
- Ruling on trading and dealing in Bitcoin - Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah
- Kripto paraların kullanımının dini hükmü nedir? - Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu (Diyanet)
- Keputusan Ijtima' Ulama Komisi Fatwa se-Indonesia VII tentang Hukum Cryptocurrency - Majelis Ulama Indonesia
Gram is not a gambling token, but most of its exchange trading is in futures.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and Gram has no chance-based payout of its own. On 27 September 2026, perpetual futures made up about 64% of GRAM/USDT volume on Binance, Bybit and OKX (about $128 million against $72 million spot; a single-day snapshot). That is a lower futures share than for many large coins, but futures still dominate. A real function exists alongside this: the network is used to move stablecoins and pay inside Telegram, so the asset is not built for gambling.
No company earns on holders' behalf: half of each fee is burned, the other half and new coins go to validators.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns, and whether any of that income is impermissible. TON has no issuer that collects revenue for Gram holders. Since June 2023 half of every transaction fee is burned and half goes to validators, who also receive new coins for each block; these are service fees for processing transactions.
Since May 2026 Telegram, a private company, leads the network's development and is its largest validator, so it earns validator rewards like any other validator; Telegram's own business (ads, subscriptions, sales of usernames and collectibles) is separate from the protocol and does not flow to holders. The TON Foundation does not publish its funding or treasury management, which is recorded as a data gap rather than evidence of impermissible income.
Code and supply rules are public, but a large frozen supply returns in 2027, issuance has jumped, and control has shifted to Telegram.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. The node software is open source and the reward rules sit in public on-chain configuration. Three things add real uncertainty. First, in 2023 validators froze 171 inactive early-mining wallets holding 1,081,389,417 coins until 21 February 2027; from then about 20% of total supply (over a third of circulating supply) can be activated again, if the owners still hold the keys.
Second, the April 2026 speed upgrade kept the reward per block (1.7 GRAM on the masterchain, 1 on the basechain) while blocks became about six times faster, lifting gross yearly issuance from about 0.7% to about 4% of supply before the fee burn (Liberandum estimate from on-chain block data); a proposal to cut rewards was discussed but had not taken effect on-chain by 27 September 2026. Third, in May 2026 Telegram replaced the TON Foundation as the network's driving force and largest validator without disclosing its stake. With a large pending unlock and shifting control, the status is caution.
TON is used mainly for stablecoin transfers and payments around Telegram; interest-based lending on it is small.
This criterion looks at what the network is actually used for. About $735 million of stablecoins, mostly USDT, circulate on TON, and Telegram is building a self-custody wallet for Gram and tokens into its app. Gram is also used to buy Telegram usernames and collectibles and in mini-apps. Interest-based lending is small: the largest lending protocol, EVAA, held about $10 million, against about $57 million of total DeFi TVL. Gambling mini-apps that accept TON exist in the Telegram ecosystem, but their share of activity could not be measured, so it is listed as a data gap rather than counted.
Fully paid spot Gram is widely available and can be held in one's own wallet.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. Gram trades spot, with full payment and delivery, on major exchanges such as Binance, Bybit and OKX under the GRAM ticker, and it can be withdrawn to a self-custody wallet where the owner controls it directly. Ownership therefore does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers. How specific funds are structured is assessed separately under trading mechanisms.
TON offers cheap, fast payments to a very large messenger audience; no measured harm outweighs that benefit.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit is real: after the 2026 upgrades a transfer costs about 0.00039 GRAM (about $0.0005) and confirms in under a second, and the network sits next to Telegram's roughly one billion users, which makes low-cost stablecoin transfers widely reachable. Scams and pump-and-dump schemes in the Telegram crypto scene are a known harm, and the TON channel itself warns users about them, but no measured study of their scale on TON was found. Speculative trading losses are counted under maysir, not again here.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesBuying Gram with full payment and immediate delivery is widely available on major exchanges, and coins can be moved to a self-custody wallet. Spot is acceptable for a DOUBTFUL asset for those who follow the permissive view.
No US spot ETF holding Gram was verified, and the terms of exchange-traded products elsewhere were not checked. A fund that holds Gram itself would be assessed like spot, but its structure (staking income, lending of the coins, borrowing) must be checked product by product. Listed treasury companies such as TON Strategy Company are shares in a business, not a fund holding the coin.
Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is not allowed in some jurisdictions. Much payment activity on TON is in stablecoins rather than Gram.
Staking Gram with a validator, directly or through a nominator pool where you keep a claim on your own coins, pays rewards for validation work, so it is rated pass. Liquid staking tokens (such as tsTON) and exchange staking are caution: they pool stake through an intermediary, and the receipt tokens can be deposited into interest-based lending.
Margin trading in Gram is offered on major exchanges but is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
GRAM perpetual futures made up about 64% of volume on the largest exchanges on 27 September 2026, but futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending Gram on platforms such as EVAA, or through exchange lending programmes, pays depositors interest from borrowers. This is riba.
Gram yield products built on lending, leveraged looping or basis trading pay interest or interest-like returns and fail. Staking is assessed separately above; products that only pass on staking rewards are closer to the staking assessment, but their source must be checked product by product.
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.Based on this framework, simply buying and holding Gram is Halal, as the token has permissible utility and no core exposure to impure protocol revenue.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.The Toncoin can be considered Shariah compliant as there are no impermissible use cases.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
No exchanges from our coverage trade Gram (prev. Toncoin) yet
Similar halal assets
Halal verdict, same category
