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

Looking for the buy-or-sell answer? It is on the VET coin page, with demand and price drivers: mrnasdog.com/research/vet VeChain’s VET supply did not change at all in the last 90 days: 0 VET was created and 0 VET was destroyed, so the net change is 0.00%, and we project the same 0.00% for the next 90 days. The monitor agrees at 0.00%. The reason is the design: VeChain pays its stakers and burns its fees in a second coin, VTHO, while every one of the 86.71B VET was created at launch. The only VET outside the market is a frozen pile of 727.58M stolen in 2019.

The verdict, in one paragraph

From Jul 18 2026 to Oct 16 2026, VET sell pressure was 0 VET and buy pressure was 0 VET on a circulating supply of 85.99B VET, a net change of 0.00%. The monitor, which tracks the circulating count over the same window, reads 0.00%, a gap of 0.00 percentage points — well inside our 0.5-point line, so no warning chip is shown. The next 90 days project 0.00% as well, because nothing on the VeChain schedule creates or removes VET. VET is a fixed-supply coin whose whole float already exists; VeChain’s inflation lives in VTHO, not in VET.

Sell pressure: where new VET comes from

Protocol inflation is 0 VET. Since the Hayabusa upgrade moved VeChainThor to delegated proof of stake, validators and delegators earn VTHO for every block, and VTHO also pays for gas. We read the node code that runs the VeChain network and found no path that creates VET after launch: every VET balance change is one wallet paying another. The launch itself made 86,712,634,466 VET — 25M for each of 101 first validators and four equal launch allocations of about 21.05B VET.

Vesting unlocks are 0 VET. The four launch wallets that received the 2018 coins now hold about 2 VET between them, unlock trackers list no VET schedule, and circulating supply equals total supply. There is nothing left to vest.

Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are 0 VET. The VeChain Foundation does not publish its wallets, but any VET it holds is already counted in the 85.99B float, so a Foundation sale moves coins from one holder to another without adding supply. One unlabelled wallet grew from about 0.14B to 3.39B VET during the window; it sits inside the float too.

Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0 VET released. There is no bankruptcy estate. The one locked pile is the 727.58M VET taken from a Foundation buyback wallet on Dec 13 2019, now frozen by the chain itself in 469 accounts after holders voted to treat it as burned. It held exactly the same balance at both ends of the window.

Buy pressure: where new VET goes

Programmatic buyback is 0 VET. The old 2019 buyback wallet holds 0 VET. A community VIP posted on Feb 12 2026 would send part of VTHO rewards and fees into a contract that buys VET and burns it, but it is still an open draft with no vote, so it books nothing.

Protocol fee burn is 0 VET. VeChain burns its base fees in VTHO, so a busy chain shrinks VTHO, not VET. The usual burn addresses held the same VET at both ends of the window, and no VET total moved.

Foundation buy is 0 VET: no Foundation or treasury purchase was announced or seen in the window.

New long-term lock is 0 VET. Staking is a real lock — the VeChain staking contract held 14.91B VET at the end of the window, up 318.66M VET in 90 days — but staked VET still counts as circulating, so a bigger stake removes nothing from the float.

Foundation and overhang

We track three VET overhangs. First, the VeChain Foundation treasury: no wallets are published, and the latest money report we found (for mid-2025) put all its assets at about $167M without giving the VET share; we walk the Foundation’s posts by hand at every rebuild. Second, the frozen theft pile of 727.58M VET in 469 accounts — the only VET outside the float — which we read on-chain at every rebuild. Third, the retired 2019 buyback wallet, which holds 0 VET.

None of these released VET this window, so the Foundation row stays at zero. If any of these balances falls between our checks — above all, if a hard fork ever unfroze the theft pile — the outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh.

How VET compares to other fixed-supply Layer 1s

Most proof-of-stake Layer 1s pay validators in the same coin people trade, so their supply grows every day. VET splits that job in two: VTHO is the reward and gas coin, and VET is the stake. That makes VET closer to a hard-cap coin than to an uncapped staking chain — its 0.00% compares with the small but steady growth on chains that mint their main coin for stakers.

Against halving coins with a hard cap, VET goes further: those still mine new coins until the cap is reached, while every VET already exists. Against exchange tokens and DeFi coins with buybacks, VET has no buyer of its own today, so it cannot shrink either. A VET buyback-and-burn would change that, but it is only a draft.

The trade-off sits in VTHO. VeChain pays stakers in VTHO and burns fees in VTHO, so any dilution or scarcity shows up in that second coin. For a VET holder, supply risk is close to nil; the open question is demand.

What to watch in the next 90 days

First, the VET buyback-and-burn VIP posted on Feb 12 2026: if it moves to a vote and passes, Buy #1 would turn on for the first time since 2019.

Second, any hard fork that touches the 469 frozen accounts — releasing the 727.58M VET would be the only way new VET could reach the market.

Third, a new VeChain Foundation money report, which would give us a fresh treasury figure; the last one we found covers mid-2025.

Fourth, the staking contract: after the Interstellar upgrade on Sep 16 2026 changed only smart-contract tools, the stake keeps rising. It books zero either way, but a sharp drop would show holders leaving the lock.

Summary

VeChain’s VET supply was flat over the last 90 days — 0 VET created, 0 VET destroyed, 0.00% net — and projects 0.00% for the next 90 days, matching the monitor. All 86.71B VET were created at launch; staking rewards and fee burns run in VTHO, and the VeChain node code has no path to make more VET. The key risk is the frozen 727.58M VET pile, which only a hard fork could release; the ceiling is the 86.71B launch total, of which 85.99B circulate.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of VET, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 16 2026.

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