The thing nobody tells you about halal crypto screeners is that the interesting answers are not at the green and red ends — they're in the middle. Of course Bitcoin is halal under spot trading. Of course a casino chain's native token isn't. The work — the part where a screener earns its keep — is in the messy middle: protocols that mix permissible and impermissible revenue, governance structures that change the answer, tokens whose mechanics quietly drift into riba territory.
This is a tour of the five review states our screener uses, what makes a coin land in each one, and worked examples from coins you've heard of.
State 1 — Halal
Passes all four filters (riba, gharar, maysir, underlying activity) with broad scholarly consensus, no open questions of material significance, traded spot-only on a regulated venue.
Worked example: BTC (Bitcoin). Spot Bitcoin traded for immediate settlement has been the subject of resolutions from multiple Shariah authorities — the Saudi Permanent Committee for Ifta has spoken to it, AAOIFI has addressed cryptoassets in commentary, and contemporary scholars including Mufti Faraz Adam, Sheikh Joe Bradford, and others have published in favor. The mechanism (a decentralized ledger; no protocol-level interest), the underlying activity (no haram revenue source — it's a settlement network), and the trading mode (spot) all clear.
What can move BTC out of "Halal" is the wrapper around it: futures contracts on Bitcoin are not halal even though Bitcoin itself is. Same coin, different verdict, different mechanism.
State 2 — Halal (with caveats)
Passes the four filters, but with at least one open question that doesn't rise to a fail but you should know about. This is the tier where most thoughtful screening happens.
Worked example: ETH (Ethereum). Spot Ethereum trading is, in our methodology, halal — Ethereum the asset is a network token, the network's primary activity isn't haram, and spot exchange is permissible. The caveat is that a portion of the Ethereum ecosystem's economic activity flows through DeFi lending protocols that are riba-bearing. Holding ETH itself does not make you a participant in those protocols. But if you later use that ETH to deposit into a lending market, you've now stepped into riba.
The screener says: ETH spot, fine. ETH staked into a yield wrapper, that's a separate question — and most yield wrappers fail.
Another caveat example: layer-1 tokens whose validator economics mix block rewards (permissible — payment for work) with MEV income whose halalness depends on the type. We'll mark the coin "Halal (with caveats)" and the caveat explains the specific item to watch.
State 3 — Review
Pending. We have an open question we have not yet resolved, and we are not willing to call halal or haram without resolving it. A coin can sit in Review for weeks while we read sources or wait for a scholar consultation. The bot does not trade Review-state coins.
Worked example pattern. A protocol pivots from a fee-based model (clean) to a hybrid model where some revenue comes from a derivatives venue (potentially gharar/riba). We pull it from the allowlist while we work out the proportions. Often we resolve to "Halal with caveats" once we see the numbers; sometimes we resolve to "Haram"; occasionally a coin sits in Review for months.
Review is the honest state. A green checkmark on something you haven't fully understood is a bigger problem than a yellow flag.
State 4 — Haram
Fails at least one of the four filters with consensus.
Worked examples by failure mode:
- Riba. Tokens whose primary economic function is paying yield on deposits — the AAVE-style lending protocols and MKR-style stablecoin issuance with interest accrual. See HalalCrypto's AAOIFI-aligned framework on bay' al-dayn for the underlying reasoning. The token isn't necessarily haram to hold in isolation in every scholar's view, but its primary utility is riba, which we treat as fail.
- Gharar. Algorithmic stablecoins with hidden depeg pathways (post-UST is the canonical lesson). The depositor genuinely cannot know what they own; that's textbook gharar fahish.
- Maysir. Pure memecoins with no underlying utility whose explicit positioning is gambling. The screener treats "$DOG2MOON1000X went viral on TikTok" as different from a real asset with utility that happens to be volatile.
- Underlying activity. Casino-chain native tokens; tokens whose revenue is primarily from porn-distribution platforms; tokens whose protocol is built to lend short-term high-rate against crypto collateral.
For each, the screener page names the specific filter that failed, the scholar opinion or standard behind the call, and the date of the verdict. If the protocol changes, we re-screen.
State 5 — Unscreened
We have not reviewed this coin. Unscreened is not endorsement, and is not condemnation. It means we have not done the work. The bot does not trade unscreened coins.
Why do unscreened coins exist on the screener at all? Because users search for them. The most useful thing we can do for someone searching "is $XYZ halal" for a coin we haven't reviewed is to honestly say "we don't know yet" and give them the option to request a review.
How to use the screener if you are not a bot user
Even if you never use the bot, the screener is free to use. Type a symbol, read the verdict, read the cited sources, decide. The intended workflow is:
- Search the coin.
- Read the state.
- Read the specific filter result — which of the four filters did this clear or fail?
- Click through to the cited source — the AAOIFI standard number, the fatwa, the scholar position.
- Form your own opinion.
You are not obliged to agree with us. The methodology is transparent precisely so you can disagree intelligently.
Why we don't show a single "halal score"
Because a single score collapses the four filters into one number, which destroys the information you actually need. A coin that fails on riba and a coin that fails on maysir are both haram, but for very different reasons — and a thoughtful Muslim investor may have different tolerances about which filters are most decisive in borderline cases. A 73/100 halal score is, in our view, a way of pretending precision exists where it doesn't.
→ Browse the live screener · Read the methodology in full · Compare bot tiers
Originally published on HalalCrypto.
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