Pi

Is Pi Network (PI) Halal? A CoinStudy HCS Analysis

Pi Network is one of the most unusual stories in cryptocurrency.

Over 50 million people downloaded the app. Millions participated daily for years — tapping a button on their phone to "mine" Pi tokens. It became one of the most downloaded crypto apps in history before Pi was even tradeable on major exchanges.

Then in 2025, Pi finally launched on public markets. Overnight, people who had been accumulating tokens for years suddenly had something with a market price. Some early participants made significant returns. Others bought in at the peak and watched the price decline.

For Muslim investors — many of whom participated in Pi mining or are considering investing now — the question is clear and important. We ran PI through the full CoinStudy Halal Crypto Standard (HCS) methodology. Here's the complete picture.

Quick Verdict: Pi Network Is Halal With Concerns ⚠️

Pi Network passes the CoinStudy HCS Sharia red-line screening with no violations. It scores 71 out of 100 and is classified as Halal With Concerns — meaning significant uncertainty remains regarding ecosystem maturity, decentralization, transparency, governance, and long-term utility.

This is not a clean halal rating. The concerns are real, specific, and important for Muslim investors to understand before making any investment decision.

What Is Pi Network?

Pi Network is a mobile-focused blockchain project designed to make cryptocurrency participation accessible to everyday users through smartphones.

The ecosystem focuses on digital participation, blockchain accessibility, mobile-first adoption, community growth, decentralized applications, and digital transactions. Its stated objective is making blockchain technology more accessible to ordinary users around the world — particularly those without access to expensive mining hardware or advanced technical expertise.

PI tokens are used for ecosystem participation, digital transactions, community engagement, platform activity, and future ecosystem services. The project has attracted tens of millions of users — one of the largest community bases of any cryptocurrency project — primarily through its mobile mining model.

How Does Pi Network Work?

Unlike traditional cryptocurrency mining that requires specialized hardware consuming significant electricity, Pi Network allows users to participate through a simple mobile application. Users open the app daily, tap a button, and accumulate PI tokens as a reward for their participation.

This approach eliminated the technical and financial barrier that prevents most ordinary people from participating in cryptocurrency networks. You don't need a graphics card. You don't need technical knowledge. You need a smartphone and a few seconds of daily attention.

The ecosystem aims to support peer-to-peer transactions, digital commerce, ecosystem applications, community participation, and blockchain services as it continues to develop. The project emphasizes simplicity and accessibility for mainstream adoption — a genuinely noble goal that has clearly resonated with millions of people globally.

The Promise vs The Reality

This is where Muslim investors need to think carefully and honestly.

Pi Network has been promising a fully open mainnet, real utility, merchant adoption, and a functioning ecosystem for years. The project has taken significantly longer to deliver these promises than most participants originally anticipated.

As of this analysis, questions remain about the actual real-world utility of PI tokens, merchant adoption levels, the depth and quality of ecosystem applications, and whether the project will achieve the kind of sustainable adoption that justifies the participation of its large community.

This gap between promise and demonstrated reality is one of the primary drivers of the lower HCS scores — particularly on Utility and Real Use at 6 out of 10, and Transparency and Governance at 6 out of 10.

Islamic Finance Analysis

Riba — Clear Pass

Pi Network does not operate through lending systems, borrowing markets, interest-generating products, or debt-based financial mechanisms. Its purpose is ecosystem participation and blockchain adoption rather than financial yield generation.

At the protocol level Pi Network does not raise major Riba concerns. This is the strongest compliance factor in the assessment — and it results in a perfect 25 out of 25 on Financial Exposure Risk.

There are no interest-bearing products, no lending pools, no savings rates, and no mechanisms that generate returns through capital-for-yield arrangements. That clean financial structure is genuine and meaningful.

Gharar — The Most Significant Concern

This is where Pi Network's assessment becomes seriously complicated — and where the HCS score of 9 out of 15 on Gharar reflects honest evaluation rather than optimism.

Compared to mature blockchain ecosystems with proven infrastructure, established utility, and years of operational track record — Pi Network has significantly more fundamental uncertainty about its future.

Several important questions remain genuinely unanswered. What real-world applications will drive meaningful Pi usage? How much genuine merchant adoption will develop and on what timeline? Will the ecosystem attract the developer activity needed to build sustainable utility? What is the realistic addressable market for Pi's specific approach to blockchain participation?

These are not trivial concerns. They're questions about whether the project's core value proposition will be realized at a scale that justifies the community's investment of time and money. That uncertainty is exactly what Islamic finance means by Gharar — and it's honestly reflected in the score.

Maysir — A Real and Important Concern

Pi Network was not created as a gambling platform and does not inherently promote betting-related activity. The protocol itself has no gambling mechanics.

But here's what Muslim investors need to honestly examine. A significant portion of public interest in Pi is driven by future price expectations, anticipated exchange listings, speculative valuation assumptions, and the hope of significant financial returns from tokens accumulated during the mining phase.

When millions of people hold an asset primarily because they hope it will go up in price — without clear evidence of the fundamental utility that would support that price — the behavior starts to resemble speculative gambling even when the underlying asset itself isn't a gambling product.

The Maysir score of 8 out of 15 reflects this honestly. No gambling mechanics in the core protocol — but elevated speculative behavior surrounding the project's price and future value creates legitimate caution.

CoinStudy HCS Screening Results

Layer 1 — Sharia Red Line Screening

Pi Network clears every hard red line.

Riba Exposure — ✅ Passed. Not an interest-based lending or borrowing protocol.

Gambling and Betting — ✅ Passed. No gambling or betting mechanism exists in the network.

Haram Industry — ✅ Passed. Pi Network has no involvement in prohibited industries.

Guaranteed Interest — ✅ Passed. No guaranteed interest obligations exist.

Synthetic Interest Products — ✅ Passed. No synthetic interest instruments are present.

No red line violations were found. Pi Network is fully eligible for HCS scoring.

Layer 2 — HCS Score Breakdown

Pi Network is scored across 7 Shariah principles with a total of 100 points.

On Financial Exposure Risk, weighted at 25%, Pi Network scores a perfect 25 out of 25. Zero exposure to interest-based or yield products. The mobile participation model involves no financial engineering of any kind. This is the cleanest dimension of the assessment.

On Gharar and Uncertainty, weighted at 15%, Pi Network scores 9 out of 15. Significant deductions for unresolved questions about ecosystem utility, adoption trajectory, and long-term sustainability. This is among the lower Gharar scores for projects that aren't explicitly early-stage — reflecting that Pi has been in development for years without achieving the level of proven utility that would reduce this uncertainty.

On Maysir and Speculation, weighted at 15%, Pi Network scores 8 out of 15. No gambling mechanics in the protocol. Significant deduction for the elevated speculative behavior surrounding PI tokens and the gap between speculative price expectations and demonstrated fundamental utility.

On Underlying Business Activity, weighted at 15%, Pi Network scores 10 out of 15. Mobile-first blockchain participation is a permissible and potentially valuable activity. Meaningful deduction for the limited evidence of productive economic activity actually occurring within the ecosystem beyond community building and token accumulation.

On Utility and Real Use, weighted at 10%, Pi Network scores 6 out of 10. One of the lower utility scores in our analysis series. Despite years of development and tens of millions of users, demonstrated real-world utility remains limited. Merchant adoption, ecosystem applications, and genuine blockchain utility are still at early stages relative to the project's age and community size.

On Tokenomics Fairness, weighted at 10%, Pi Network scores 7 out of 10. The token distribution model raises questions around the large supply held by the core team, the long vesting timelines, and the concentrated development authority over token release mechanisms. Reasonable but not without concerns.

On Transparency and Governance, weighted at 10%, Pi Network scores 6 out of 10. Among the lower governance scores in our analysis series. The project remains closely controlled by its core development team. Governance independence, technical transparency, and decentralization are significantly less mature than comparable projects at similar stages of development.

Overall HCS Score: 71 out of 100 — Halal With Concerns

The Centralization Question — Honest and Direct

Pi Network's development is substantially controlled by the founding team — Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis and Dr. Chengdiao Fan from Stanford. Most strategic decisions, protocol development choices, ecosystem management, and token release mechanisms remain under their concentrated authority.

This is meaningfully different from how Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, or Polkadot operate — where development is distributed across communities, foundations, and independent contributors with no single entity maintaining dominant control.

Islamic finance values governance transparency and distributed control. A project where one team controls the development direction, token economics, and ecosystem strategy — years after launch — carries governance concentration concerns that are reflected honestly in the 6 out of 10 transparency score.

This isn't an accusation of bad faith. It's an observation about structural governance maturity. Pi may become more decentralized over time. As of this analysis, it hasn't demonstrated that yet.

The 50 Million Users — Why Scale Doesn't Automatically Mean Utility

Pi's massive user base is genuinely impressive. 50+ million people participated in the mining phase. That community scale is extraordinary.

But community size and utility are different things. Millions of people downloaded Clubhouse. Millions created NFTs at peak hype. Community participation doesn't automatically translate into sustainable economic utility.

The question for Pi isn't whether people joined. It's whether they'll use PI for real transactions, whether merchants will accept it, whether developers will build on it, and whether the ecosystem will generate genuine economic activity beyond token accumulation.

Until those questions are answered with demonstrated data rather than promises, the utility score of 6 out of 10 honestly reflects where Pi stands today.

Important Questions for Muslim Investors

Before investing in Pi Network, ask yourself honestly:

Am I investing based on demonstrated utility and adoption evidence — or primarily on the hope that the price will rise because of the large community? Do I understand that ecosystem maturity and governance concentration are genuine concerns that may take years to resolve? Am I treating my PI tokens as a genuine investment with clear utility expectations — or holding them speculatively? Do I understand the tokenomics and how team token releases could affect the market? Would I be comfortable with a qualified Islamic scholar reviewing my actual motivations for holding PI?

The honest answers to these questions should guide the decision more than the community enthusiasm or the mining history.

Final Verdict

Pi Network is classified as Halal With Concerns under the CoinStudy Halal Crypto Standard with a score of 71 out of 100.

The protocol passes all Sharia red-line checks with a perfect Financial Exposure Risk score. There is no Riba, no gambling mechanics, and no prohibited industry involvement. These are genuine compliance strengths.

But significant concerns remain — ecosystem maturity, governance concentration, transparency limitations, limited demonstrated utility, and elevated speculative behavior surrounding the project's price. These concerns are specific, real, and honestly reflected in the score.

For Muslim investors — Pi Network is not prohibited. But it requires exceptional honesty about your motivations, careful assessment of the genuine utility evidence, and appropriate caution about speculative price expectations. The Halal With Concerns classification means engage carefully and thoughtfully — not freely and without reservation.

Disclaimer: This analysis is provided for educational and research purposes only. This analysis is based on guidance from CoinStudy's HCS Shariah Board members. CoinStudy does not issue personal fatwas or financial advice. Please consult a qualified Islamic scholar for individual guidance.