Ethereum Fee Burns Now Offset Only 2% of New ETH Issuance in 2026

WHY IT MATTERS

Think of Ethereum like a country that both prints new money and shreds some old money every day. In 2021, Ethereum introduced a rule that automatically "burns" (permanently destroys) a small part of every transaction fee. After another major upgrade in 2022, Ethereum sometimes destroyed more coins than it created — like shredding more cash than the mint printed. That made ETH a shrinking supply asset, which many people found appealing. Now, because fewer people are paying high fees on Ethereum's main network — partly because cheaper alternatives called Layer 2s handle much of the traffic — the burning has slowed dramatically. Only about 2% of newly created ETH is being offset by burns, meaning the total supply of ETH is growing. For beginners, this is important because the balance between new coin creation (inflation) and coin destruction (deflation) affects how scarce an asset is over time.