Originally published at mrnasdog.com/research/leo/inflation by MrNasDog.

Main page: the full LEO coin page — signal, price drivers and the buy/sell questions → mrnasdog.com/research/leo

LEO Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Mixed flows · supply roughly steady

UNUS SED LEO (LEO) did not grow at all in the last 90 days: no new LEO was created and nothing unlocked. The only flow was the iFinex buyback, which took 286,897 LEO out of circulation between Jul 23 and Sep 1 2026, so supply shrank about 0.03%. The buyback moves have been paused since Sep 1 2026 with about 291.7K LEO bought and waiting, and the next 90 days assume about 594.9K LEO leaves, a 0.06% shrink.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days from Jul 23 to Oct 21 2026, LEO supply changed by −0.03%: zero new LEO against 286,897 LEO removed by the buyback, on a circulating supply of 919.86M LEO. For the next 90 days we expect −0.06%, still with no new supply. The independent supply monitor reads −0.05% for the same 90 days, only 0.02 points away from our reading, so no warning flag is shown. In short, LEO is a fixed-supply exchange token with a slow company buyback: nothing is printed, and a small slice leaves circulation each month.

Sell pressure: where new LEO comes from

Protocol inflation: 0 LEO. LEO has no staking rewards, no mining and no emission schedule. No new LEO appeared on either of its two networks, Ethereum and Vaulta, between Jul 23 and Oct 21 2026. The power to create more still exists, though: the Vaulta version of LEO allows up to 1B tokens, about 692M more than exist there today, and the Ethereum version keeps a mint switch in the hands of its controller. That is why we check both every time rather than calling the supply fixed forever.

Vesting unlocks: 0 LEO. All LEO was created in May 2019 for a private sale of up to $1 billion by iFinex, the company behind Bitfinex. There was no lock-up and there is no team or investor unlock calendar, so nothing can vest.

Company and unscheduled unlocks: 0 LEO. iFinex holds the great majority of LEO itself, but every one of those coins already counts as circulating, so moving or selling them would not add new supply to the count. The details are in the overhang section below.

Long-term locked or bankruptcy: 0 LEO. No bankruptcy estate, court case or locked reserve is waiting to release LEO.

Buy pressure: where new LEO goes

Programmatic buyback: 286,897 LEO in the last 90 days. Since 2019 iFinex has promised to spend at least 27% of the previous month’s gross revenue buying LEO at market prices, until no LEO is left in circulation. The bought coins are moved, one batch a day, into the LEO token’s own issuer account on Vaulta. They are parked there, not destroyed, but that account sits outside circulation and has never sent any out. That account now holds 47.80M LEO. In this window there were 41 moves, from Jul 23 to Sep 1 2026, with batches of roughly 6,300 to 7,800 LEO.

Then the moves stopped. Since Sep 1 2026 iFinex has kept buying, and by Oct 21 2026 about 291.7K LEO had piled up, bought but not yet moved. Until that pile reaches the issuer account it still counts as circulating, so we do not count it as removed. LEO has paused like this before: a pause in the summer of 2025 ended with one move of 384,919 LEO on Sep 15 2025, and another ended with 228,754 LEO on Feb 4 2026. Because the buyback is set in dollars, the next 90 days assume iFinex keeps spending what it spent in the last 90, about $5.38 million, which buys about 594.9K LEO at today’s price of about $9.04.

Protocol fee burn: 0 LEO. There is no separate fee burn. LEO leaves circulation only through the buyback.

Company buy from recovered funds: 0 LEO for now. iFinex also promised to use at least 80% of the net money recovered from the 2016 Bitfinex hack to buy back LEO within 18 months of getting it back. US government wallets moved 264.86 BTC on Oct 6 2026 and about 12,267 BTC on Oct 8 2026, and reports disagree on whether the court-ordered return of about 94,643 BTC will reach Bitfinex. Bitfinex has not confirmed receiving any of it, so nothing is counted.

New long-term lock: 0 LEO. LEO has no staking or lock program.

Foundation and overhang

LEO’s biggest risk is the size of the company’s own holdings. iFinex keeps 648M LEO in an Ethereum multisig wallet that did not move in the window, about 257.79M LEO in a Vaulta account, and about 2.06M LEO in the Vaulta account that sends the buyback. Together that is about 907.85M LEO, nearly all of the 919.86M in circulation. The buyback pile of about 291.7K LEO is held by Bitfinex too. We read all of these balances at every rebuild.

Because these coins already count as circulating, a sale from them would not show up as new supply in our numbers. It would show up as selling in the market. The issuer account holding the 47.80M parked LEO is the one pile that sits outside circulation: if its balance ever falls between rebuilds, the outflow goes into the company-unlocks row at the next rebuild.

How LEO compares to other exchange tokens

Most big exchange tokens shrink their supply by destroying coins. BNB runs a quarterly auto-burn that sends coins to an address no one controls, and OKB destroyed most of its supply in 2025 and fixed what was left. LEO works differently: its buyback parks coins in the token’s own issuer account, which is controlled by a company multisig. The coins leave circulation, but on paper they still exist.

LEO is also unusual in who owns it. On most exchange tokens a large share sits with the public. On LEO the company itself holds about 99% of the circulating count, so the public float is small and trading is thin. That makes the buyback large relative to the coins that really change hands, even though it is only about 0.03% of the counted supply each 90 days.

Finally, LEO pays nothing out. There is no staking yield and no validator reward, unlike chain tokens such as ETH that pay brand-new coins to the people who run the network. With no new LEO ever paid out, the supply can only stay flat or shrink, as long as iFinex does not use its power to create more.

What to watch in the next 90 days

The buyback catch-up. Whether iFinex moves the waiting pile, about 291.7K LEO on Oct 21 2026 and growing, into the issuer account. A move of that size would match the past pauses that ended on Sep 15 2025 and Feb 4 2026.

The hack bitcoin. Whether Bitfinex confirms it received any of the bitcoin the US government moved on Oct 6 2026 and Oct 8 2026. If it does, the 80% promise could buy back far more LEO than the normal buyback does in years.

Vaulta support. Bitfinex closed withdrawals of the Vaulta coin itself on Aug 31 2026 while keeping LEO on Vaulta open; the last buyback move came the next morning. Any notice that moves LEO’s buyback to Ethereum would change where we read it.

The company piles. Any move out of the 648M Ethereum wallet or the 257.79M Vaulta account, and any new LEO created on either network.

Summary

UNUS SED LEO is a fixed-supply exchange token: no new LEO was created in the last 90 days, and the iFinex buyback took 286,897 LEO out of circulation, a 0.03% shrink, with about 0.06% expected next. The buyback moves have been paused since Sep 1 2026 while about 291.7K bought LEO wait. The key risk is ownership: iFinex itself holds about 907.85M of the 919.86M LEO in circulation and still has the power to create more, though it has not done so.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of LEO, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 21 2026.

Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/leo/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.