Over the 90 days to July 27, 2026, Ethereum validators earned roughly 254,000 ETH in issuance, while EIP-1559 base-fee burns removed just 5,200 ETH. That imbalance pushed net supply growth to about +0.21% for the period — a trend that's getting harder to ignore as staking participation climbs.
The 90-day snapshot
Average daily base-fee burn over the full 90 days was about 58 ETH. In the last 30 days of that window, it fell to roughly 27 ETH per day. Meanwhile, staked ETH has ballooned: from about 1.5 million at the start of 2026 to nearly 40 million by mid-year. As of July 23, roughly 32% of total ETH supply was staked.
That means issuance is flowing out to validators at a steady clip, while the deflationary pressure from EIP-1559 has all but vanished. The net effect is a modest but persistent supply increase.
Why the burn is dropping
The facts don't specify why base-fee burns have fallen so sharply. But the numbers are clear: the burn rate in the last month was less than half the 90-day average. Lower network activity means lower base fees, which means less ETH destroyed. For a chain that briefly flirted with net deflation after the Merge, the current trajectory is a reversal.
The reward burn idea
One concept floating around in research circles is 'reward burns' — burning a share of validator rewards, specifically priority fees and/or MEV, to counterbalance issuance when base-fee burns are low. Right now, those fees flow entirely to validators. A reward burn would redirect some of that value to the supply side.
Proponents argue it could smooth supply growth and reduce centralization pressures from MEV extraction. But the idea is still in research territory. No implementation on mainnet Ethereum exists, and there's no timeline for one.
The conversation, however, is likely to intensify. With base-fee burns scraping lows and staked supply at record highs, the math isn't going away.
