Originally published at https://mrnasdog.com/research/ena/inflation
Looking for the buy-or-sell answer? It is on the ENA coin page, with demand and price drivers: mrnasdog.com/research/ena
ENA Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing
Ethena (ENA) supply grew fast in the last 90 days and will grow much more slowly in the next 90. Between Jul 25 and Oct 23 2026 unlocks added 2.13B ENA to circulation, a net +15.89%, most of it the 1.41B ENA investor remainder released in one go on Oct 5 2026. For the next 90 days only team coins unlock, 281.25M ENA or about +2.10%. ENA mints nothing new and burns nothing; its supply is a fixed 15B, and the voted-in ENA buyback stays off until USDe supply reaches $7.5B.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Over the last 90 days the circulating ENA supply rose by 2.13B ENA against 13.41B ENA circulating today, a net +15.89%, with nothing taken back out. Our projection for the next 90 days is +2.10%, because the investor calendar is finished and only the team’s monthly tranche of 93.75M ENA is left. Other trackers show +40.22% for the same 90 days, a gap of 24.33 points, so the coin page carries a warning note. Most of that gap is not new ENA: on Oct 6 2026 those trackers started counting about 1.72B ENA still held for the Ethena Foundation and the ecosystem pool as unlocked, although no release of those coins was announced. That jump leaves their 90-day figure around Jan 4 2027. The on-chain reading stands: ENA is an unlock-driven token whose heaviest unlock is now behind it.
Sell pressure: where new ENA comes from
Protocol inflation is 0. ENA pays no staking rewards and no block rewards, and the ENA contract on Ethereum read exactly 15,000,000,000 ENA at both ends of the window. The contract does keep a mint switch: Ethena’s governance timelock could create up to 1.5B ENA at a time. It has never been used since launch, and no governance proposal asks for it.
Vesting unlocks are the main source of new ENA: 1.84B ENA in the last 90 days. Core contributors hold 30% of supply and receive 93.75M ENA early each month until March 2028, which came to 281.25M ENA in the window. Investors hold 25% and used to receive 78.125M ENA a month. On Aug 27 2026 the Ethena Foundation agreed with lead investors to end that schedule, and on Oct 5 2026 every remaining investor coin, 1.41B ENA, unlocked at once. Together with the August and September tranches, investors received 1.56B ENA in the window. Part of that release went to the Foundation itself, which had bought the locked coins of seed investors who had been selling. After Oct 5 2026 the only locked ENA is the team’s 1.59B ENA, so the next 90 days bring three team unlocks worth 281.25M ENA.
Foundation and other unlocks added 285.94M ENA: the Foundation’s monthly share of 40.63M ENA and the ecosystem pool’s 54.69M ENA unlocked in August, September and October 2026. Since Oct 6 2026 the rest of both pools counts as circulating, so further Foundation spending adds nothing new to the count for the next 90 days. There is no long-term lock or bankruptcy estate to release; the four-year lock on the largest treasury company’s ENA was waived from Oct 5 2026, but those coins already counted as circulating, so that row is 0.
Buy pressure: where new ENA goes
Nothing took ENA out of circulation in the last 90 days, and nothing is expected to in the next 90. The programmatic buyback is 0. ENA holders approved a fee switch in September 2026 that sends up to 95% of the Foundation’s net revenue into ENA buybacks, starting at 5% of protocol revenue once USDe supply averages $7.5B over 14 days and rising to 20% at $20B. USDe supply is about $4.6B today, so the switch has not turned on, and Ethena has not said whether bought ENA will be burned or held.
The fee burn is 0: ENA has no burn, and the burn address held nothing at either end of the window. The Foundation buy row is 0 as well. The Foundation’s August 2026 off-market purchase from seed investors bought coins that were still locked; they unlocked into the Foundation’s hands on Oct 5 2026, so the deal moved coins between holders rather than out of circulation. New long-term locks are 0: staked ENA still counts as circulating, and the staking contract actually shrank from 1.0B ENA on Jul 25 2026 to 972.46M ENA on Oct 23 2026.
Foundation and overhang
The largest ENA overhang is the team allocation: 1.59B ENA still locked, unlocking at 93.75M ENA a month until March 2028. These coins sit with a custodian, not in a public vesting contract, so we follow the published calendar. The second is the Ethena Foundation and the ecosystem pool, about 1.72B ENA that now counts as circulating although it was meant to unlock month by month until April 2028; the Foundation can spend it on grants, rewards or sales at any time, and that would add no new supply to the count but would add real coins to the market. The third is the listed treasury company that bought ENA from the Foundation: about 3.03B ENA, or roughly 20% of all ENA. Its lock ended on Oct 5 2026, but any sale needs the Foundation’s written consent and five business days’ notice, with the Foundation allowed to buy first. Its wallets did not move in the window.
No buyback wallet exists yet, because the fee switch has not started. We re-check the team calendar, the treasury company’s holdings and the Foundation’s wallets at every rebuild. If any of these balances falls between refreshes, the outflow enters the Foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next refresh.
How ENA compares to other DeFi governance tokens
ENA belongs to the group of fixed-supply DeFi tokens whose supply grows only through vesting, not through emissions. In that group, the share of supply still locked decides the pressure. After Oct 5 2026 ENA has about 89% of its 15B supply unlocked, with only the team calendar left, which puts it closer to a mature, mostly vested token than to a young one with years of investor unlocks ahead. The difference from tokens such as UNI or AAVE is that ENA’s holders get no buyback yet: those protocols already return fees to their token, while ENA’s fee switch waits on USDe growth.
Against buyback-first tokens such as HYPE, where fee revenue buys tokens every day, ENA is the opposite case today: unlocks without an offsetting buyer. The approved fee switch could change that, but at its first step it would capture about $22.5M a year, far less than the dollar value of the team’s monthly unlocks. ENA also differs from staking chains such as ETH: it creates no new coins at all, so once the team calendar ends in March 2028 its circulating supply can only stop growing, unless governance ever uses the mint switch.
What to watch in the next 90 days
Nov 2 2026, Dec 2 2026 and Jan 2 2027: the three team unlocks of 93.75M ENA each, the only scheduled new supply in the next 90 days.
USDe supply: the buyback starts only after a 14-day average of $7.5B, against about $4.6B today; a sharp rise in USDe is the one thing that would add a buyer.
The Master Framework Agreement between Ethena Labs and the Foundation, expected in October 2026, which should say how protocol value and revenue flow to the Foundation and so to ENA buybacks.
Any sale notice from the treasury company holding about 3.03B ENA, and any large movement from Foundation wallets now that their coins count as circulating.
Around Jan 4 2027 the Oct 6 2026 recount leaves other trackers’ 90-day window, and their figure should fall back toward ours.
Summary
Ethena’s ENA supply grew +15.89% over the 90 days to Oct 23 2026, driven by the 1.41B ENA early investor release on Oct 5 2026, and is projected to grow only about +2.10% over the next 90 days as just the team’s 93.75M ENA monthly tranche remains. ENA has a fixed 15B supply, no emissions and no burn, and its voted-in buyback stays off until USDe supply reaches $7.5B. The key risk is selling by large holders whose coins are already unlocked, the Foundation pools and the treasury company with about 3.03B ENA; the ceiling is that only 1.59B ENA of team coins is left to unlock, ending in March 2028.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of ENA, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 23 2026.
Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/ena/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.