Has Ether become deflationary? Over 156k ETH burned since London Hardfork
2 min readTL;DR Breakdown:
- In three instances, ETH blocks mined hourly on Tuesday produced deflationary results.
- So far, over 156,000 ETH has been completely removed from the supply.
A significant amount of Ether (ETH) has been burned since the London hardfork went live on the network on August 5. The introduction of the EIP-1559 has effectively helped to reduce the supply of ETH via the process of burning, and there have been instances where ETH blocks became deflationary (when ETH burned exceeded new coins issued).
ETH produces hourly deflationary blocks
On Tuesday, there were three recorded cases where ETH blocks mined hourly became deflationary. The first set of deflationary blocks were mined between 03:00-04:00 UTC, which produced 613.7500 ETH but had 1,487.1170 ETH burned.
1,487.1170 $ETH burned
last hour.
Issuance: 613.7500 ETH
Net Change: -873.3670 ETH
Annualized: -6.54%2021-08-31 03:00-04:00 UTC
Last Block: 13131065Cumulative
— ETH Burn
(@ethburnbot) In the second set of blocks mined between 20:00-21:00 UTC, about 533.5000 ETH was issued, and 607.2776 ETH burned. The last set mined between 23:00-00:00 UTC produced 532.5000 ETH and burned 661.2008 ETH. These deflationary blocks are a result of increased transactions on the blockchain, probably from the NFTs and DeFi.
Over the past 24 hours, about 10,106 ETH was burned, according to Ultrasound Money, at a burn rate of 6.96 ETH per minute. With ETH’s price at $3,533, this means that about $35.4 million in Ether were burned.
More than 156k ETH burned since London hardfork
According to data from Ultrasound Money, a total of 156,792 ETH has burned since the launch of the London hardfork during the time of writing. The total number of ETH burned is equivalent to $554 million in today’s price. Although ETH has occasionally produced hourly deflationary blocks, it can’t be categorically said to be completely deflationary, given the issuance rate is still higher than ETH burned.
As of August 31, a total of 347,531 ETH were issued from London hardfork, and only 156,792 ETH has burned so far. However, it’s worth mentioning that EIP-1559 is effectively helping to reduce Ether’s inflation rate.
