Is Olympus Halal?
Table of Contents
A DAO is a term related to the crypto world and refers to an organization with transparent rules which is controlled by its members.
What is Olympus DAO?
Olympus DAO issues a coin called OHM.
OHM aims to be a stablecoin backed by treasury assets.
Rather than being pegged to the U.S. dollar like so many other stablecoins are, the value of the OHM token is meant to float based on the value of its underlying treasury of assets.
Backing a currency with treasury assets is not a new concept. In fact, most traditional currencies used to be backed by the Gold held by central banks.
At the time, at least in theory, you could take your dollars to the central bank and exchange them for Gold.
The United States left the Gold standard in 1971 when Richard Nixon announced the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value.
The long-term goal of the Olympus DAO is for their OHM currency to become stable enough to be used in daily transactions and to quote prices while not relying on a peg to a traditional currency and maintaining a high degree of decentralized decision making.
It’s worth mentioning that even though OHM tokens aim to be a stablecoin, they are far from being one just yet. They have been very volatile since their first issuance in April of 2021 and much more volatility is expected before OHM reaches any degree of stability.
As far as halal and haram go, nothing about Olympus DAO’s goal of creating a stablecoin for the crypto world backed by treasury assets is inherently haram.
In fact, some argue that in order to be halal a currency should be backed by treasury assets. I happen not to hold this view.
How to use OHM tokens?
Holders of OHM can use their tokens to vote on issues pertaining to the protocol. The more tokens a holder has, the more votes they can cast.
Other than voting, OHM holders can either sell their tokens or stake them.
Bonding OHM
The return stakers get comes from the process of Bonding.
Remember how I said Olympus DAO is backing its OHM tokens with treasury assets consisting of a basket of cryptocurrencies?
Well, the way Olympus DAO gets these cryptocurrencies is through Bonding.
Bonding happens when crypto assets are sold to the Olympus treasury in exchange for receiving OHM at a discounted price after a certain period of time.
So, let’s say OHM tokens are currently trading at $100 per token.
You want to buy OHM tokens with the Ethereum you have.
The Olympus DAO treasury will sell you OHM tokens for $96 (instead of the $100 they are worth on the market) on the condition you wait 5 days for their delivery (numbers in this example are just hypothetical to illustrate the Bonding process).
Assuming the OHM tokens maintain their price during this time, you will make a profit on the OHM tokens you bought (to the tune of $4 per token). On the other hand, the Olympus DAO treasury will add your Ethereum to its reserves which it will use to issue more OHM tokens against.
This bonding process seems to be a pretty clear form of prohibited riba since you are exchanging currencies of different types with delay.
Sahih Muslim 1587c
So the hadith starts by listing the common commodities that were used as currencies during the time of the prophet pbuh and says that if you’re exchanging them they must be for equal amounts and then says that if you’re exchanging currencies of different types the exchange can be for different amounts but it has to be hand-to-hand meaning the exchange has to happen without delay from either party.
In the case of Bonding with OHM tokens, you are providing one cryptocurrency, for example Ethereum, and you’re waiting a number of days before receiving the OHM tokens that you purchased for a discount which is what I understand the prophet peace be upon him to have prohibited in the hadith I mentioned.
So the bonding part of the OHM protocol seems like riba to me.
Staking OHM
As per the documentation on Olympus DAOs website:
Stakers stake their OHM on the Olympus website to earn rebase rewards. The rebase rewards come from the proceed from bond sales
Olympus DAO
Since the rewards for staking are coming from the bond sales which we’ve deemed in violation of the conditions of currency exchanges in Islam, I think these profits are haram to collect.
Does it follow from what I said that simply holding OHM token or using it in a transaction as a currency is necessarily haram? I don’t think I can really say that since that would mean using traditional fiat currency is haram.
Also, as a holder, you are able to vote and potentially make proposals. So one may have the intention of affecting positive change in the protocol by being a holder and that is certainly not something that is haram.
Again, this is my assessment as of now. Let me know if I’ve missed something in the comments.
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