Two months ago, I calculated the current inflation rates for a number of tokens. I have now updated the numbers to include the most recent minting. Is your project’s rate meeting the claimed rate?
2 min read
I tried unsuccessfully to find a good resource that regularly updates/calculates the current inflation rates for cryptocurrencies. So now I do it for myself.
What is inflation of a crypto?
I am invested into a small number of projects, but one key factor I focus heavily on is the inflationary nature of the native token or coin for a project. At its core basis is the idea of supply and demand. Simply put, if supply outstrips demand, then the price of the crypto will drop.
The Inflation of a coin is simply the rate at which it is currently increasing its supply every year. I.e. If a token has a 2% inflation rate, then one year from now, 2% more tokens are available to buy.
The circulating supply of a token can drop for a number of reasons such as a burning or lost keys. Supply can increase for minting, rewards, staking or token unlocks.
Inflation can be a good thing for some projects in early stages, but overall a low rate of inflation will keep the buying pressure high. For example, Bitcoin’s inflation rate in 2012 was 32% and halved the following year. So if the project is under a year old, you can cut it some slack for now. But if it’s still hitting double figure inflation after three years, it is not in good shape.
Max Supply:
It is worth noting that some projects have a maximum number of tokens that can ever be put into circulation, whereas some projects have an infinite supply, meaning the number of tokens can increase forever. For example, Bitcoin can never exceed 21million coins.
Calculations:
I have taken the numbers from coinmarketcap at 5 Sep 2021 and 5 Sep 2022 (today). Anyone can verify these if they wish. I’ve calculated inflation simply as:
Inflation Rate % = (2022 Supply / 2021 Supply ) – 1
Results:
TOKEN 2021 Supply 2022 Supply Inflation Rate Binance 168,137,036 161,337,261 – 4.04 % Cronos 25,263,013,692 25,263,013,692 0.00 % Nano 133,248,297 133,248,297 0.00 % Dogecoin 131,155,870,131 132,670,764,300 1.16 % Bitcoin 18,807,550 19,141,612 1.78 % Ethereum 117,404,250 122,242,711 4.12 % Ripple 46,542,338,341 49,646,492,379 6.67 % Cardano 32,014,049,408 34,854,947,575 8.87 % Polkadot 987,579,315 1,113,618,961 12.76 % Solana 291,308,606 349,839,651 20.09 % Cosmos 220,906,857 286,370,297 29.63 % Polygon 6,611,996,838 8,682,124,704 31.31 % Avalanche 219,916,980 294,498,125 33.91 % Shiba Inu 394,796,000,000,000 549,063,278,876,302 39.08 % Algorand 3,522,475,190 6,899,258,017 95.86 % Luna Classic 400,578,112 6,586,846,876,643 1,644,235 %
Some projects publish their expected inflation rate. For example, Bitcoin’s estimated inflation rate for the year was 1.77% – which was almost bang on.
I will reserve judgement for now as to which projects show more or less potential for value increase based on supply and demand only. How does your project choice measure up? What is the advertised rate according the white paper tokenomics? How close is it to the actual numbers?
If you are concerned about your investments, check the numbers against several other sources. CoinGecko would be another good place to start.
submitted by /u/gnarley_quinn
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