Is Gram (prev. Toncoin) (GRAM) Halal? Staking, Gas and the Faith Verdict

On June 15, 2026, ten Toncoin in your wallet quietly became ten Gram. No swap, no migration, no action needed. A community vote passed with 81.22% support and the token that used to trade as TON now trades as GRAM, with a new name, a new ticker, and a new logo. The chain underneath, The Open Network, did not change at all. If you are trying to figure out whether this thing is halal, that rebrand is the easy part. The harder question is what you are actually holding, and whether the yield people keep advertising on it crosses a line.

So let me walk through it the way I would if you texted me asking "is gram (prev. toncoin) halal," because the answer genuinely depends on what you do with it, not just whether you own it.

What Gram actually is

Gram is the native token of The Open Network, a layer-1 smart contract platform. The lineage matters here. Telegram designed the original TON in 2018 and named the token "Gram" in its white paper, then walked away in 2020 after an SEC fight. An open-source community picked it up, renamed the chain The Open Network, and ran it as Toncoin for years. The 2026 rebrand to Gram is a return to that original name, and it comes with Pavel Durov publicly backing a tighter link between Telegram and the network. The pitch is a Telegram-native currency: pay, tip, and transact inside an app with roughly a billion users.

Technically it is a proof-of-stake smart contract platform, in the same broad class as Ethereum or Solana. GRAM pays for gas (the computation and storage fee for every transaction), it secures the network through staking, and it is the unit that DeFi apps, wallets, and Telegram mini-apps settle in. When you hold GRAM you hold a slice of a functioning settlement layer, not a claim on a company and not a debt instrument. That distinction drives almost everything below.

The Islamic verdict on holding GRAM

Start with the two questions Shariah scholars actually ask about any crypto asset: is it mal (recognized property) with taqawwum (lawful, transferable value), and does holding it involve gharar (excessive uncertainty), riba, or maysir (gambling)?

On the mal question, the scholarly world is split, and GRAM lands squarely in the crossfire. The prohibitionist camp, led by Mufti Taqi Usmani and echoed by Darul Uloom Karachi, argues that crypto lacks intrinsic value, functions largely as a speculative instrument, and is not backed by anything the Shariah recognizes as wealth. Under that reasoning, GRAM would not qualify as mal mutaqawwim and trading it is impermissible. On the other side, Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council ruled in 2020 that digital assets can be treated as mal and traded, and scholars like Mufti Faraz Adam have argued that a token with a genuine network utility, which is exactly what GRAM's gas-and-settlement role is, has a stronger case than a pure meme coin. Sheikh Nizam Yaquby and the Amanie group have generally taken the more permissive, case-by-case line: look at what the token does, not just that it is "crypto."

Here is where I would separate doctrine from inference. The doctrine is stable: riba is prohibited (Quran 2:275-279), maysir is prohibited, and property must be lawful. The inference is whether GRAM the utility token satisfies mal. That is a contested judgment, not a settled ruling, and honest screening has to say so.

On gharar and volatility, GRAM is a large, liquid, transparent token with real on-chain usage. Price swings alone do not make an asset haram, or stocks would be off-limits too. The permissive scholars treat ordinary market volatility as normal commercial risk, not the ruinous, contractual uncertainty gharar actually targets. So volatility is a caution, not a disqualifier.

The bigger Islamic issue with GRAM is not holding it. It is the yield.

Holding vs staking vs lending vs LP

This is the part people skip, and it is where the same token flips from likely-permissible to probably-not depending on what you click.

Holding. If you buy GRAM and it sits in your wallet, the only questions are the mal debate above and volatility. Under the permissive framework, this is the cleanest activity.

Staking. GRAM secures the network through proof-of-stake, and this is where the mechanics matter enormously. TON uses validators who must lock a large stake (the technical minimum is 300,000 TON, and in practice validators run closer to a million) plus nominator pools and single-nominator contracts that let smaller holders delegate. When you stake, you are not lending GRAM at interest. You are contributing capital to a service (transaction validation) and earning a share of the fees and block rewards that service generates. The Shariah Review Bureau and scholars like Mufti Faraz Adam have built a taxonomy for exactly this: proof-of-stake rewards can be structured as Ju'alah (a reward for performing a defined task) or Wakala (an agency arrangement where you appoint the validator to work your capital for a fee-share). Framed that way, staking GRAM through a nominator pool has a credible halal case, because the return is tied to real network service and its fees, not a guaranteed interest coupon.

The catch is that it depends on the structure. If a platform guarantees you a fixed percentage return on GRAM regardless of what the validator actually earns, that starts to look like Qard (a loan) paying riba, and the halal case collapses. So the honest answer on GRAM staking is: permissible in principle when it is genuine variable-return delegation (Ju'alah or Wakala), impermissible when it is dressed-up fixed-rate lending. Read the terms.

Lending. Any product that lets you "lend" GRAM for a fixed or predetermined return is riba al-nasiah, full stop. This is doctrine, not inference. It does not matter that it is on-chain.

Liquidity provision. Supplying GRAM into a DEX pool is a grayer zone. You earn trading fees (defensible, like a service fee) but you take on impermanent loss and, depending on the pool, exposure to tokens that may themselves be non-compliant. Case-by-case, and generally the weakest of the four for a cautious investor.

Christian, Jewish and LDS lenses

The multi-faith read is genuinely different in each tradition, and none of them care about riba the way Islam does.

Christian (BRI + USCCB). Biblically Responsible Investing screens across roughly six categories: abortion, pornography, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, and anti-family or anti-biblical entertainment. GRAM is a neutral settlement layer, so it does not directly trip any BRI category the way a casino stock would. The USCCB investment guidelines exclude specific product lines and emphasize avoiding grave moral evil and pursuing corporate responsibility. A base-layer protocol has no product to screen in that sense. The real Christian caution is the same one a prudent believer applies to any volatile asset: is this stewardship or speculation? Holding a functional network token in a diversified way reads very differently from betting the rent money on a pump.

Jewish (Halakhic). The core issue is ribbis (interest between Jews), and the Bais HaVaad framework runs a two-tier analysis: some arrangements are biblically forbidden interest, others are rabbinically restricted, and permissible structures often require a heter iska (a partnership reframing that converts a loan into a joint venture). For GRAM, holding is not an interest transaction at all, so it is unremarkable. Staking framed as a profit-share on a genuine venture fits the heter iska logic reasonably well. A fixed-yield GRAM lending product between Jewish counterparties is where ribbis concerns bite, and that is the piece to avoid or restructure.

LDS (Word of Wisdom / Oaks on speculation). The Word of Wisdom is about substances and does not touch crypto. The relevant teaching is Elder Dallin H. Oaks's 1971 warning against speculation, the mindset of chasing quick gains on volatile assets. Nothing prohibits an LDS member from owning GRAM, but the tradition's caution against speculative fervor lands hard on anyone treating it as a lottery ticket rather than a considered, long-horizon position.

Across all four, notice the pattern: the asset itself is mostly neutral, and the behavior is what gets judged.

The FaithScreener verdict

Pulling it together, here is how GRAM actually screens.

For a Muslim investor following the permissive framework (Malaysia SAC, Yaquby, Amanie), holding and genuine variable-return staking of GRAM have a defensible halal case, because the token has real network utility and the staking reward is tied to validation service rather than a fixed loan coupon. Under the strict Usmani/Karachi view, GRAM as a tradeable crypto asset is avoided entirely. That is a live scholarly disagreement, and you should follow the school your own scholar follows rather than pretend it is resolved. What is not contested: fixed-yield GRAM lending is riba and off the table under every school.

For Christian, Jewish, and LDS investors, GRAM as a base-layer token clears the category screens, and the operative caution is speculation and prudence rather than a doctrinal prohibition on the asset.

You can see the live compliance layers, the class flag, and the activity-by-activity read on GRAM at faithscreener.com/crypto/GRAM. If you want to compare it against other smart contract platforms and tokens, the full crypto screening universe covers 3,300-plus assets, and you can read exactly how each tradition's rules are applied on the frameworks page.

The Bottom Line

Gram (formerly Toncoin, now GRAM after the June 2026 rename) is a proof-of-stake settlement token with real utility, which gives it a stronger halal footing than a meme coin under the permissive scholars, though the Usmani/Karachi school still rules it out. The one thing to remember: with GRAM the verdict follows the activity, not the ticker. Holding and true Ju'alah/Wakala-style staking can be fine, while any fixed-return GRAM lending product is riba and stays haram no matter how the app labels it.

This article is educational research, not a religious ruling or personalized investment advice. Confirm your specific situation with a qualified scholar or financial advisor before acting.