Originally published at mrnasdog.com/research/fil/inflation by MrNasDog.
➜ Start with the Filecoin coin page for the short answer (should you buy FIL?) and its price drivers: mrnasdog.com/research/fil
FIL Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing
FIL supply grew fast over the last 90 days and should keep growing, but at less than half the pace. In the 90 days to Oct 16 2026, Filecoin added 16.43M FIL from the launch vesting of Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation, 10.19M FIL from storage collateral that came back to providers and 5.30M FIL of block rewards, while fees and penalties burned 433,316 FIL, so net supply rose +3.77%. The six-year vesting ended on Oct 14 2026, so the MrNasDog Pressure Framework projects about +1.78% for the next 90 days, driven by block rewards and returning collateral.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Our ledger reads FIL at +3.77% net over the last 90 days and +1.78% over the next 90. The inflation monitor reads +4.64%, a gap of 0.87 percentage points, which is above our 0.5-point limit, so the coin page carries a ⚠ monitor gap note. We split the gap into three parts: the monitor divides by the smaller supply of Jul 11 2026 (worth 0.18 points), its window ends a week earlier than ours (worth 0.16 points), and the supply figure it reads, which sits about 86M FIL below the chain’s own circulating count, rose 4.30M FIL faster than the chain did (worth 0.54 points). Our on-chain number stays. In one line: Filecoin is inflationary by design, and just past its biggest unlock.
Sell pressure: where new FIL comes from
Protocol inflation: 5.30M FIL. Filecoin pays the storage providers who win blocks in new FIL from a reward pool that still holds 690.0M FIL. Over the window the pool paid out 5.30M FIL, about 58,900 a day, and 75% of each payment is locked for 180 days before the provider can sell it. The block reward shrinks slowly by design, halving about every six years, so the next 90 days come to about 5.07M FIL. The Solstice upgrade on Oct 19 2026 splits each block reward between providers and a new service fund, but it creates the same amount of FIL.
Vesting unlocks: 16.43M FIL. At launch in 2020, Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation received a large allocation that unlocked in a straight line over six years, about 187,000 FIL a day. That vesting ended on Oct 14 2026. The vested total has not moved since, so the next 90 days add 0 FIL from vesting. This single change is why the next 90 days look so much lighter than the last.
Foundation and unscheduled unlocks: 0. The mining reserve holds 282.93M FIL and did not move in the window; only a network upgrade can spend or burn it. The Foundation and Protocol Labs wallets hold coins that already vested, which count as circulating, so a sale from them moves coins between holders and adds no new supply.
Long-term locked coins: 10.19M FIL released. Storage providers lock FIL as collateral while they store data, together with the locked share of their rewards. When storage deals end, that collateral comes back. In this window more came back than new storage locked: the locked total fell from 72.59M to 62.40M FIL. It has fallen every month for the past year, about 4.7M FIL a month on average, so we expect a similar 10.19M FIL release in the next 90 days. Filecoin has no bankruptcy estate.
Buy pressure: where new FIL goes
Programmatic buyback: 0. Nothing buys FIL back on the market. No buyback programme exists, and the Solstice upgrade adds none.
Protocol fee burn: 433,316 FIL. Network fees and the penalties charged to storage providers who break their commitments are sent to a burn account that can never spend them. Most of this window’s burn came in late July, alongside a wave of collateral coming back; since August it has run near 2,000 FIL a day, because the base fee sits at its floor and transactions are cheap. We keep the 90-day rate for the next 90 days.
Foundation buy: 0. Neither the Filecoin Foundation nor Protocol Labs bought FIL in the window, and no purchase plan has been announced.
New long-term lock: 0 net. New storage still locks fresh collateral, but less than the collateral that came back, so we show the net release on the sell side. After Oct 19 2026, every new sector gets ten times more storage power, and older sectors can be upgraded by topping up their collateral. That could lock more FIL than today, but there is no data on it yet, so we book it only once it shows up on-chain.
Foundation and overhang
The largest pool that could one day reach the market is the mining reserve of 282.93M FIL. It sits outside the circulating count, has not moved, and can be spent or burned only through a network upgrade; we read it on-chain at every rebuild. The old vesting wallets still hold 13.26M FIL for Protocol Labs and 7.55M FIL for the Filecoin Foundation, a Foundation wallet holds 10.00M FIL, and a Protocol Labs payout wallet holds 19.56M FIL after receiving 10.53M FIL from a vesting wallet on Aug 21 2026. All of these coins have vested and already count as circulating, so selling them adds no new supply, though it does add coins to the market. We read each of these balances on-chain at every rebuild. If the mining reserve’s balance falls between refreshes, the outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh.
How FIL compares to other storage networks
Most storage tokens pay providers in new coins, but Filecoin adds a second tap that few others have: collateral. Providers must lock FIL to store data, so when the network grows the lock pulls coins off the market, and when storage shrinks the lock gives them back. Over the past year the locked total has gone one way, down, which turns the collateral system into a source of new circulating FIL rather than a sink. A network with fixed-cap tokens or an upfront endowment has no such swing.
Against proof-of-stake chains, Filecoin’s block reward is small: about 0.6% of circulating supply per 90 days, and it shrinks on a fixed six-year halving curve rather than rising with the amount staked. The burn is also small, because the base fee is near its floor, so Filecoin does not offset its new coins the way a busy fee-burn chain can.
What set Filecoin apart until this month was the launch vesting, which added about 187,000 FIL a day for six years. With it gone, Filecoin moves from one of the heavier-unlock coins to one whose new supply depends on its own storage market: how much collateral comes back, and whether the Solstice changes pull providers back in.
What to watch in the next 90 days
The Solstice upgrade on Oct 19 2026. It splits each block reward between storage providers and a service fund, with no burn in its first quarter. Watch whether the upgrade to ten-times storage power makes providers lock more collateral.
Collateral coming back. The locked total fell 1.55M FIL in the last 30 days, slower than in July. If the fall keeps slowing, the next 90 days will come in under our +1.78%.
The first Solstice burn test on Jan 18 2027. From the second quarter, the part of the service share that is not earned by paid storage is burned, which could add a real burn just after this window.
The mining reserve. Any proposal to burn or spend the 282.93M FIL reserve would change the long-run picture; none is scheduled.
The monitor gap. The monitor’s 90-day reading still includes the last weeks of vesting; as those weeks drop out of its window, its number should fall toward ours.
Summary
The MrNasDog Pressure Framework reads Filecoin (FIL) at +3.77% net over the last 90 days: 16.43M FIL of launch vesting, 10.19M FIL of returned storage collateral and 5.30M FIL of block rewards against a 433,316 FIL burn. The six-year vesting ended on Oct 14 2026, so the next 90 days drop to about +1.78%, with block rewards and returning collateral as the only taps. The key risk is that storage keeps shrinking and collateral keeps flowing back; the upside case is that the Solstice upgrade brings new storage that locks FIL again and, from 2027, burns part of the reward. FIL’s supply cap is 2B FIL, and 282.93M of it sits in a reserve no one can spend without a network upgrade.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of FIL, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 16 2026.
Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/fil/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.