STX Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing
Originally published at mrnasdog.com/research/stx/inflation. MrNasDog Pressure Framework · Inflation Analysis.
This is the long supply read. For the signal, the price drivers and the questions people ask about Stacks, see mrnasdog.com/research/stx.
STX supply is growing, and the pace went up this summer. In the 90 days to Oct 17 2026, Stacks minted 12.23M STX for miners and 9.86M STX for its growth fund, the Stacks Endowment, against 0 STX burned or bought back. That is +1.18% of the 1.88B STX in circulation, and about +1.27% for the next 90 days now that both mints run at their new, higher rates. Stacks has no supply cap, and the miner reward has no planned cut.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Our reading for STX over the last 90 days is +1.18% net new supply: 22.09M STX created and nothing taken out. The inflation monitor, which reads the circulating count from market data, shows +1.12% over its own 90-day window, a gap of 0.06 percentage points. That is well inside our 0.5-point line, so no warning chip is shown and the two readings agree. Looking ahead, the Stacks ledger projects 23.74M STX of new supply in the next 90 days, +1.27%. In one line: Stacks is inflationary by design, with two protocol mints and no burn to offset them.
Sell pressure: where new STX comes from
The first source is the miner reward. Stacks miners spend bitcoin to win the right to produce Stacks blocks, and for each Bitcoin block they are paid new STX. That reward was cut from 1,000 to 500 STX in April 2026 under an older halving plan, then put back to 1,000 STX per Bitcoin block by the Bitcoin staking upgrade that went live on Jul 30 2026. The new rule carries no further cut; it is meant to hold until a later upgrade looks at it again. We read total STX supply on-chain at both ends of the window and took out the growth-fund mint: miners received 12,234,206 STX in 90 days. Since the upgrade settled, the pace is about 145,600 STX a day, which gives 13.10M STX for the next 90 days.
The second source is the growth-fund mint, added by a community vote in 2025. At the start of every miner turn, new STX go straight into the Endowment’s contract. The amount stepped up from 475 to 1,140 STX per turn on Jul 30 2026, the same week as the miner reward change, and the next step, to 1,705 STX, is not due until mid-2027. The contract received 9,855,680 STX in the window, matching the published per-turn amounts to the coin. At the current pace that is about 10.64M STX in the next 90 days.
Vesting adds nothing. Every early investor, team and token-sale allocation from the Stacks launch is unlocked, and circulating supply equals total supply. The one schedule still running is 100M STX the Endowment releases to itself at about 4.17M a month; those coins sit inside its own contract and already count as circulating, so a release is not new supply. The Endowment’s own sales are also moves between holders (more on that below). There is no bankruptcy estate, trustee or long lock releasing STX, so the long-term locked row is zero.
Buy pressure: where new STX goes
Nothing on the buy side removes STX. There is no buyback: the Endowment’s rules only say a burn plan would go to a vote if the fund ever holds more than $1B, and no such plan exists. There is no fee burn either: transaction fees on Stacks are paid to miners. We checked both ways: the two burn addresses gained only about 0.10 STX in 90 days, and total supply rose at every point we read, so the protocol fee burn row is 0.
Locking is real but does not shrink the float. Stacking pays out in bitcoin, and since the upgrade STX holders can stake alone or pair their STX with locked BTC in a Bitcoin staking bond. The amount locked rose after the upgrade, to 493.45M STX this cycle. But staked STX still counts as circulating, so a bigger stake does not take coins out of the supply count; the new long-term lock row stays at 0. The Endowment did not buy STX in the window either, so the foundation buy row is also zero.
Foundation and overhang
The team-controlled overhang on Stacks is the Endowment, the growth fund the 2025 vote created. We follow four of its addresses on-chain: the mint contract that receives every new growth-fund coin holds 64.92M STX and has not been claimed from since Jul 2 2026; a linked multisig holds 61.02M STX, moved there in one transfer on Aug 11 2026; the spending multisig holds 29.37M STX; and the wallet that claims from the contract holds 6.86M STX after sending 39.08M to the spending multisig on Sep 24 2026. Together that is about 162M STX, near 8.6% of supply.
The spending multisig is the active one: it sent out 24.18M STX in this window, mostly in batches of 2.4M to 3M STX to a few receiving addresses. Because every one of these balances already counts as circulating, those sales move STX between holders and add no new supply to our count; the new supply was booked once, when it was minted. We track these balances. If any of them falls between checks, we follow where the coins went at the next check, and an outflow only counts as new supply if it comes from outside the circulating count. Other Stacks Labs or foundation wallets that no transfer links to these four are not on this list.
How STX compares to other Bitcoin layers and treasury-funded chains
Against Bitcoin itself, STX is the opposite design. Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21M coins and halves its miner reward every four years, so its new supply keeps shrinking. Stacks borrows Bitcoin’s blocks for timing and security, but its own coin has no cap: the miner reward was restored to a flat 1,000 STX per Bitcoin block, and a second mint funds a treasury. Bitcoin’s yearly new supply is now well under 1%; STX is running at roughly 5% a year.
Against smart-contract chains that burn fees, STX has no offset at all. On chains with a fee burn, busy days destroy coins and pull net supply down. On Stacks, fees go to miners, so more use does not reduce supply. Against chains whose stakers are paid in their own coin, Stacks is different again: stackers are paid in bitcoin, so the lock itself creates no new STX, but it also removes nothing from the circulating count.
The closest match is a chain that funds a growth treasury by minting, on top of paying block producers. Those designs work only if the treasury spends its coins on real growth faster than holders feel the dilution. For STX, the growth-fund mint is close to half of all new supply, and the fund’s coins already trade as circulating.
What to watch in the next 90 days
The Endowment’s monthly vesting steps fall around Oct 29 2026, Nov 28 2026 and Dec 28 2026, about 4.17M STX each; they stay inside the circulating count, but a claim followed by sales would show up in the spending wallets.
The next network upgrade, Epoch 4.1, is targeted for early December 2026, with the activation block to be published at least 30 days ahead; we will check whether it touches the miner reward or the growth-fund mint.
Bitcoin staking bonds now open about once a month, with the next round expected by Nov 10 2026; bigger bonds lock more STX and pull buyers in, without changing the supply count.
The new Stacks Labs leadership promised a public holder call within 30 days of its Oct 7 2026 plan; any word on Endowment sales, or a burn of later growth-fund mints, would change the forward reading.
Summary
STX is inflationary: +1.18% of supply was added in the last 90 days and about +1.27% is projected for the next 90, with no burn and no buyback against it. The new supply comes from two protocol mints — 1,000 STX per Bitcoin block for miners and 1,140 STX per miner turn for the Stacks Endowment — both raised on Jul 30 2026. The key risk is the Endowment’s roughly 162M STX, which already trades as circulating and is being sold in steady batches. There is no supply cap, and no cut to either mint is scheduled before mid-2027.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of STX, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 17 2026.
Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/stx/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.