Originally published at https://mrnasdog.com/research/atom/inflation
This is the long supply read. For the signal, the price drivers and the questions people ask about Cosmos Hub, see mrnasdog.com/research/atom.
ATOM Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing
ATOM is inflationary by design. In the 90 days to Oct 15 2026 the Cosmos Hub minted 16.33M ATOM for stakers while only 1,950 ATOM was destroyed, so supply grew a net +3.04%, and the next 90 days point to +3.18%. The mint rate is stuck at its 10% ceiling because staking sits below its goal, and fast blocks push the real yearly rate to about 12.7%. ATOM has no supply cap, no buyback and no fee burn.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Our 90-day reading for ATOM is +3.04%: 16.33M ATOM of new staking rewards against 1,950 ATOM of slashing burns, measured on 536.26M circulating ATOM. The inflation monitor reads +3.32% for its own 90 days, a gap of 0.28 percentage points. That is inside our 0.5-point tolerance, so no warning chip is shown and the two readings agree. Looking forward, the Cosmos Hub adds about 17.04M ATOM in the next 90 days if blocks keep their normal pace, a net +3.18%. The plain label: the Cosmos Hub is a high-emission staking chain where almost all of the new ATOM goes straight to stakers and nothing takes it back out.
Sell pressure: where new ATOM comes from
Protocol inflation is the whole story: 16.33M ATOM in 90 days. The Cosmos Hub mints ATOM in every block. Its rule aims for 67% of all ATOM to be staked; when staking is lower, the rate climbs until it hits the 10% ceiling, and today only 63.1% is staked (338.17M ATOM), so the rate has sat at the ceiling for the whole window. The rule also assumes a block every 7.2 seconds, but Cosmos Hub blocks arrive about every 5.7 seconds. Each block pays a fixed slice of the yearly amount, so more blocks mean more new ATOM, and the real rate is close to 12.7% a year. A one-day chain halt on Sep 22 and Sep 23 2026 skipped about a day of blocks; with normal block speed the next 90 days mint about 17.04M ATOM.
Vesting unlocks are 0. The 2017 fundraiser and the genesis allocations were released years ago, unlock trackers show the Cosmos Hub as fully unlocked, and circulating supply is within 5K ATOM of total supply.
Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are 0. The community pool, the Interchain Foundation and the parked fee pot all hold ATOM that is already counted as circulating, so when they spend or sell, coins change hands and no new supply appears. The same goes for the 1.23M ATOM recovered after the September attack on Neutron, which went back to Neutron on Oct 14 2026.
Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0. No estate or trustee is paying out ATOM. On Sep 30 2026 Cosmos Hub voters rejected a proposal to pay 1.72M ATOM from the community pool to the Neutron attacker, so nothing moved.
Buy pressure: where new ATOM goes
The only thing that removes ATOM is slashing: 1,950 ATOM in 90 days. When a validator stays offline too long, a small part of its stake is destroyed. Most of the burns came in bursts around network events, on Sep 3 2026 after an upgrade, on Sep 22 around the halt, and on Oct 3 and Oct 10 2026. Five burns from late July could not be read and are left out. Because bursts came every month, we expect about the same in the next 90 days. Next to the mint, slashing offsets about 0.01% of new supply.
There is no programmatic buyback (0). Nothing on the Cosmos Hub uses fees or treasury money to buy ATOM, and the long-running review of ATOM’s economics has no vote or date yet.
The protocol fee burn is 0. Cosmos Hub base fees are not destroyed. They pile up in a protocol pot that held 61.6K ATOM on Oct 15 2026 and keeps growing, so the coins still exist.
Foundation buying is 0, and new long-term locks are 0. Staking is a real lock with a 21-day exit, but staked ATOM still counts as circulating, so a bigger stake takes nothing out of the float. It only changes how the mint is shared.
Foundation and overhang
We track three team-controlled balances. The Cosmos Hub community pool holds 11.44M ATOM; it can only spend through a passing governance vote, and we read it on-chain at every rebuild. In September it took back 555,400 ATOM that an older ecosystem program had held since 2023. The Interchain Foundation reported 14.93M ATOM in its last treasury snapshot, dated Jun 30 2026; it publishes no wallet, so we follow its reports by hand, and its staff said on Oct 15 2026 that it has stopped selling ATOM this year. The protocol fee pot holds 61.6K ATOM. The Neutron recovery wallet is now empty after it sent its 1.23M ATOM back to Neutron.
All of these balances are already inside the circulating figure, so none of them can add new supply when it moves. If any of these balances falls between our checks, the outflow goes into Sell #3 at the next rebuild.
How ATOM compares to other proof-of-stake Layer 1s
Most large proof-of-stake chains pay validators in new coins, but they differ in two ways: how the rate is set and whether anything is destroyed. Ethereum ties issuance to the square root of the stake and burns the base fee of every transaction, so busy weeks cancel part of the new ETH. Solana follows a fixed schedule that lowers its rate a little every year toward a long-term floor and also burns part of its fees. ATOM has neither feature: its rate depends on how much ATOM is staked, it is capped at 10% on paper, and nothing burns its fees.
The Cosmos Hub also has a quirk the others do not: its rule counts blocks, not time. Ethereum and Solana pay per unit of time, so faster blocks do not raise issuance. On the Cosmos Hub faster blocks mean more payouts, which is why the real rate sits near 12.7% instead of 10%. Against capped coins such as Bitcoin, ATOM has no hard limit at all.
The trade-off is clear. The high mint pays stakers a strong yield, but holders who do not stake are diluted by about 3% every 90 days, and the coins paid out to stakers are free to be sold.
What to watch in the next 90 days
First, the economics review. A wrap-up with recommendations for Cosmos Hub governance is being prepared, with no numbers and no dates as of Oct 15 2026; any vote that lowers the 10% ceiling or fixes the block count would cut Sell #1 directly.
Second, the staked share. If staking rises above 67% of supply from today’s 63.1%, the rate starts to fall from its ceiling; until then it stays at 10%.
Third, the next software upgrade. Gaia v29 is on the test network and changes no mint setting, but past upgrades brought slashing bursts, which add to the small Buy #5 row.
Fourth, community pool spends and the Interchain Foundation’s next treasury report. Neither adds supply, but they show whether large holders are selling into the market.
Summary
ATOM supply is growing and is projected to keep growing: +3.04% in the last 90 days and +3.18% in the next, from 16.33M ATOM of new staking rewards against only 1,950 ATOM of slashing burns. The Cosmos Hub mint sits at its 10% ceiling and runs nearer 12.7% a year because blocks come faster than the rule expects. There is no cap, no buyback and no fee burn, so the only real brake is a governance vote, and none is scheduled yet.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of ATOM, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 15 2026.
Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/atom/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.