Staking in crypto is like interest in Fiat.
You lend (stake) your crypto and get reward (interest) for it.
I suggest all my Muslim brother to stay away from this new kind usury.
I see that similar discussions happened in Islamic world and they have a point actually. Staking is too similar to lending and you get interest as a reward. But if you think about mining, staking is like mining but you don't consume energy like mining. So there are controversies about that. Since staking is only here for less than 10 years we can't talk about that for sure. Everybody should do their own research and if they don't feel alright they shouldn't touch staking coins at all.
Let me remind you, holding and trading staking coins are okay. It is only when you out them on stake, it is forbidden.
Just like fiat. If you own fiat, there is nothing wrong with it.
But you are not allowed to lend then for interest.
In Islam giving loan is allowed if it is interest free. In fact Islam encourage to give interstate free loans to people who ask for it.
There are many staking models. Each generalization is wrong (including this?
). First of all, interest and staking are not the same essentially. Why? Interest is a contract and needs at least two parties: lender and borrower. In "decentralized" (I'll touch centralized ones later) staking, there is no borrower since nobody or no institution (in case of decentralization) "has to" pay some extra money to the lender. In fact, there also is no lender. Why? In interest case, the money of lender is used for "something". In staking, again nobody or no institution "is allowed to" use the lender's money. It is just frozen and decreases the "liquid" supply. Nothing else. So, since there is no lender and no borrower, there also is no contract. Yes, you may earn some extra "rate-guaranteed" money (block reward). If the coin is infinitely inflationary (I mean there is no max supply like fiats), this would be probably (... requires to study the details) haram. For the finite supply coins like Bitcoin, those block rewards are the incentives of the setup/preparation phase. If these don't exist, nobody or no group can set up a blockchain. Anyway, after some time, the rewards will be completely finished and the validators will earn extra but "not rate-guaranteed" money from the transactions. To me, this "not guaranteed" money is not interest but dividend. First of all, since the ratio (APR, APY or whatever) is not guaranteed, the validators have a risk of earning nothing. Besides, the validators carry the risk of losing their coins' value.
As for the centralized staking, if the centralized entity does not guarantee any extra money than the amount which the network provides and "really" stakes your assets, I think this isn't haram since the centralized entity and the lender have win-win situation. The centralized entity increases its liquid assets and the lender does not involve in the technical details. Other than this option, I do not think the centralized staking is halal.
As an example, I want to give my staking choice. Currently I stake on Binance Chain and I do not think it is haram. First of all, it does not have block rewards. The doubt decreases
I earn just from the daily transaction fees. Against this, I cannot move my assets for 7 days. So, I undertake an important risk: I cannot sell them in any unexpected market condition.
To sum up, to me, it cannot be said that "each staking model is haram". Each staking model should be examined by thinking about why interest is haram, similarities, differences. Please do not forget that this is a new economy and technology. Before saying that something is haram easily, Muslims should consider it "thoroughly". I think the former behavior harms the advancement of Muslims.