HCS Score
Red Line Violations
These are absolute prohibitions in Islamic finance. If any red line is triggered, the asset is automatically classified as HARAM.
Riba Exposure
Not an interest-based lending or borrowing protocol
Gambling / Betting
No gambling or betting mechanism
Haram Industry
Not involved in haram industry
Based on Red Line Screening and HCS Scoring.
Haram / Non Compliant
This cryptocurrency is evaluated as Haram for investment and use because the asset demonstrates material Sharia compliance concerns within the CoinStudy HCS framework.
Explanation
This asset shows significant concerns related to Sharia compliance, financial structure, or speculative design.
Reviewed by
CoinStudy Shariah Board
Prediction markets are having a moment.
The accuracy of platforms like Polymarket during recent election cycles brought prediction markets into mainstream financial conversation. Traders, analysts, and even journalists began treating prediction market probability estimates as more reliable than traditional polling. The concept gained serious institutional attention.
Rain arrived in this environment with an ambitious vision — building the decentralized infrastructure layer for prediction markets. Not just one prediction market, but a permissionless protocol that lets anyone create any market on any question, resolved by AI oracles and backed by decentralized arbitration. The "Uniswap of prediction markets" — open, accessible, and composable.
The technical ambition is genuine. The decentralization approach is sophisticated. And for Muslim investors, the compliance analysis is the same as for every other prediction market we've encountered — because the financial structure is the same.
We ran RAIN through the full CoinStudy Halal Crypto Standard (HCS) methodology. Here's the complete picture.
RAIN fails the CoinStudy HCS Sharia red-line screening. The Gambling / Betting red line is triggered — resulting in an automatic Haram classification with no further scoring.
Rain is a prediction markets protocol. Its core and only purpose is facilitating financial speculation on the outcomes of uncertain future events. That structure constitutes Maysir under Islamic finance principles. The decentralized, AI-powered, permissionless implementation doesn't change what the activity is.
Rain is a fully decentralized prediction markets protocol built on Arbitrum with cross-chain support. The protocol allows anyone to create markets on any question — public or private — and trade positions based on predicted outcomes.
The protocol features two market types. Private Markets allow exclusive, invitation-only forecasting among specific communities. Public Markets can be resolved by an integrated AI oracle backed by a decentralized arbitration system combining an AI judge and human oracles for dispute resolution.
The RAIN token uses a deflationary model — 2.5% of all trading volume is used to buy and burn RAIN tokens. Governance is carried out by DAO token holders.
Rain describes itself explicitly as "the Uniswap of prediction markets" — a permissionless framework for anyone to create and trade custom markets without restrictions.
Rain operates as infrastructure for prediction market creation and trading. Anyone can create a market on any question — will a specific candidate win an election? Will a company's stock price be above a threshold by a specific date? Will a specific sporting event have a particular outcome? Will a geopolitical event occur before a certain deadline?
Market participants buy positions representing possible outcomes. Prices fluctuate between 0 and 1 based on collective probability assessments. When the market resolves — through the AI oracle or human arbitration — winning positions pay out at full value. Losing positions become worthless.
The RAIN token's buy-and-burn mechanism ties the token's value directly to prediction market trading volume. More trading activity means more RAIN burned, reducing supply and creating upward price pressure on the remaining tokens.
Comparing Rain to Uniswap is revealing for the Islamic finance assessment.
Uniswap is infrastructure for token trading — a protocol that makes it easy to swap one token for another across a decentralized exchange. We analyzed Uniswap (UNI) as Haram due to its liquidity provision model generating interest-like returns.
Rain is infrastructure for prediction market trading — a protocol that makes it easy to create and trade positions on uncertain future outcomes across a decentralized betting platform.
The "Uniswap of prediction markets" comparison is accurate in its intended sense — Rain aims to do for prediction markets what Uniswap did for decentralized exchange. What it also reveals is that Rain's purpose is providing the most accessible, most permissionless version possible of financial activity that Islamic finance prohibits.
Rain's AI oracle and decentralized arbitration system are technically interesting. The idea of using AI to resolve prediction market outcomes — with human oracle oversight for disputes — addresses one of the genuine challenges in prediction markets: how do you resolve markets reliably without centralized authority?
For Muslim investors evaluating compliance, this technical innovation is separate from the compliance question.
The resolution mechanism determines how winners are identified. It doesn't change what winners and losers are doing — staking money on uncertain future outcomes and receiving or losing that money based on whether the outcome matches their prediction. Whether an AI oracle or a human judge determines the outcome, the financial relationship being created is the same.
A more reliably resolved prediction market is still a prediction market. The reliability of the outcome determination doesn't transform the activity from gambling-like speculation into productive economic activity.
Rain is not a lending protocol. It doesn't involve interest-bearing financial arrangements, guaranteed percentage returns on deposited capital, or borrowing mechanisms with financing fees.
The Riba concern does not apply to Rain's core mechanism. This is one of the clearer red-line passes in our prediction market analysis — Rain is specifically a prediction market infrastructure protocol, not a financial lending platform.
Every position created on Rain depends entirely on uncertain future outcomes. Whether a political election, a market price threshold, a sporting result, or a geopolitical event — the value of every position is determined by events that are genuinely unknowable at the time of participation.
This fundamental uncertainty about outcomes isn't a peripheral risk to be managed — it's the defining feature of the product. Rain creates markets specifically because the outcomes are uncertain. Without uncertainty, there would be no market.
Islamic finance distinguishes between normal investment uncertainty — which is acceptable — and fundamental outcome uncertainty in financial contracts — which creates prohibited Gharar. Prediction markets are built around the latter. Rain's permissionless framework for creating any market on any uncertain question amplifies this concern — literally any uncertain outcome can become a financial betting market under Rain's architecture.
Rain's compliance failure is clear, direct, and identical to our Polymarket analysis.
Prediction market participation involves staking money on uncertain future event outcomes and receiving financial gain if the prediction is correct. Profits come directly from other participants who predicted incorrectly. No productive economic activity is performed. No real asset is owned. No service is provided to someone who needs it. Money redistributes from incorrect predictors to correct predictors based on outcome accuracy.
This is the financial structure that Islamic finance identifies as Maysir — gambling-like activity where financial outcomes depend on uncertain events rather than productive economic activity, where participants compete such that one person's gain comes from another's loss, and where no genuine economic value is created.
Rain's sophistication — AI oracles, permissionless market creation, cross-chain support, deflationary tokenomics — creates a more technically advanced prediction market infrastructure. It doesn't create a different type of economic activity. The underlying financial relationship in every Rain market is identical to every other prediction market — a bet on an uncertain outcome.
RAIN fails one red line. Under the CoinStudy HCS framework a single failure results in automatic Haram classification.
Riba Exposure — ✅ Passed. Not a lending or interest-based protocol.
Gambling / Betting — ❌ Failed. Rain is explicitly a prediction markets protocol — infrastructure for creating and trading financial positions on uncertain future event outcomes. This constitutes gambling-like financial activity under the Maysir principle of Islamic finance. The decentralized, permissionless, AI-powered implementation doesn't change the nature of the activity.
Haram Industry — ✅ Passed.
Guaranteed Interest — ✅ Passed. No guaranteed interest obligations.
Synthetic Interest Products — ✅ Passed. No synthetic interest instruments.
One red line failed. Layer 2 scoring is skipped entirely.
Overall Result: Haram — Red Line Violations
Muslim investors who read our Polymarket analysis will immediately recognize that Rain and Polymarket receive identical compliance classifications for identical reasons.
Polymarket — Haram. Centralized prediction market platform where users stake money on uncertain future event outcomes.
Rain — Haram. Decentralized prediction market protocol where users stake money on uncertain future event outcomes.
The operational difference — centralized vs decentralized — is real and significant from a technology perspective. From an Islamic finance perspective, it's irrelevant. The financial activity being facilitated is identical. The compliance classification is identical.
If anything, Rain's permissionless framework is more comprehensive in facilitating this activity than Polymarket — it allows anyone to create any market on any question without restrictions. The "Uniswap of prediction markets" vision means Rain aims to make prediction market participation as universal and frictionless as token trading. That ambition amplifies rather than mitigates the compliance concern.
Rain's deflationary tokenomics — where 2.5% of all trading volume is used to buy and burn RAIN tokens — creates a direct structural connection between RAIN token value and prediction market trading volumes.
When more people bet on more prediction markets on Rain — more RAIN is burned, supply decreases, and the remaining RAIN becomes more valuable.
Holding RAIN means your investment grows when prediction market gambling activity on Rain increases. The governance token's value is directly tied to the volume of the activity that triggers the haram classification.
This structural connection is the same reason exchange tokens — where the token value grows with derivatives trading volumes — are haram in our analysis. The asset whose value you're holding benefits from the growth of prohibited financial activity.
Rain's Private Markets allow specific communities to create invitation-only forecasting markets. The framing around Private Markets sometimes emphasizes their potential use for legitimate forecasting within professional communities — internal company forecasting, research institutions predicting scientific outcomes, or community decision-making.
The compliance assessment doesn't change based on who has access to the market. A private prediction market where participants stake money on uncertain outcomes and receive or lose that money based on outcome accuracy is still a prediction market with the same Maysir structure.
The privacy of access changes who can participate. It doesn't change what the participants are doing when they participate.
Before investing in any prediction market protocol, ask yourself:
Does this protocol's primary function allow participants to stake money on uncertain future event outcomes? Do participants profit when their predictions are correct at the expense of those who predicted incorrectly? Is any genuine productive economic activity performed in the process — or is value simply redistributed between predictors based on accuracy? Does the token's value grow when more prediction market trading activity occurs? Would a qualified Islamic scholar recognize the financial relationships in prediction markets as resembling gambling-like speculation?
For Rain — every one of these questions has a clear answer that points consistently toward the same compliance conclusion.
Rain (RAIN) is classified as Haram / Non-Compliant under the CoinStudy Halal Crypto Standard.
The Gambling / Betting red line is triggered — resulting in automatic Haram classification. Rain is explicitly and comprehensively a prediction markets protocol. Its purpose is providing decentralized infrastructure for financial speculation on uncertain future event outcomes. That activity constitutes Maysir under Islamic finance principles regardless of how sophisticated, decentralized, or AI-powered the implementation is.
The technical innovation in Rain's architecture is genuine. The AI oracle resolution mechanism is interesting. The permissionless market creation framework is ambitious. None of these technical merits change the financial structure of what happens in every Rain market — money staked on uncertain outcomes, redistributed from incorrect predictors to correct predictors, with no productive economic activity performed.
For Muslim investors — Rain belongs in the same compliance category as Polymarket and every other prediction market platform we've encountered. The decentralization makes it more accessible. It doesn't make it permissible.
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.
Guaranteed Interest
No guaranteed interest obligations
Synthetic Interest Products
No synthetic interest instruments
1 Red Line Failed
This asset is automatically classified as HARAM.
