Ethereum (ETH) in Deflationary Territory as Supply Drops Post-Merge
2024-12-31
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The supply of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum’s ether, has dropped by around 0.02% over the past two years after the network’s merge with the Beacon Chain, which moved it to a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm.
According to the founder of 1confirmation Nick Tomaino, over the same period the supply of the flagship cryptocurrency bitcoin moved up 1.83% per year to 19.8 million BTC. Per his words, while knowing bitcoin’s supply is capped to 21 million that will be mined by 2140 is “better than trusting central bankers,” deflation based on usage “is better still.”
Tomaino added that when it comes to “fundamentals and sound monetary policy, there is no second best” referring to ether. After the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 in August 2021 as part of the London hard fork, every ether transaction includes a base fee that is automatically burned, it’s worth noting.
According to data from Ultrasound Money, a platform tracking Ethereum’s supply change, a total of 53,514.62 ETH has been burned since the network’s merge, meaning around $175.9 million worth of the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization has been burned since the upgrade over two years ago.
The current supply of ether is of around 120.4 million ETH and the network’s supply has been decreasing by 0.02% per year since the upgrade. Over the last 30 days, lower usage has meant the supply growth is of 0.31% for a year, with 947,000 ETH being issued per year and annualized burns equating to 575,000 ETH, the platform’s data shows.
As CryptoGlobe reported, The spot ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) launched by the world’s largest asset manager earlier this year now holds a substantial trove of ETH, having recently surpassed one million tokens.
According to data from BlackRock’s website and the Ethereum blockchain — first spotted by Arkham Intelligence — the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) fund now holds 1.065 million ETH worth a market value of over $3.5 billion after seeing significant inflows over the past few weeks, according to CoinGlass data.
Featured image via Unsplash.