Lack of use raises the inflation of the ethhereum cryptocurrency

A worrying trend in the Ethereum ecosystem (ETH) deepens since the beginning of last February: the ETH broadcast has constantly exceeded burning, evidencing a lack of use of the network and marking the beginning of an inflationary period.

The main reason behind this inflationary behavior is the lack of use of the Ethereum network, since ETH burning depends directly on the activity on the network: More transactions mean more base rates that burn.

That negative trend, which has been consolidated since the end of January and was reported by cryptootics, is directly related to the burning system introduced by the proposal for improvement of Ethereum 1559 (EIP-1559) and The Merge update, two technical milestones that transformed the way Ethereum manages the supply of your native token.

Since April 2024, the activity in Ethereum has constantly decreased until today, which has reduced the amount of burned ETH, according to the Ultrasound Money site. Meanwhile, the issuance of new ETH for validators continues at a constant pace, since they receive rewards regardless of the level of network use. This has generated an imbalance that has led to the net increase of the supply.

Second -layer networks stole the prominence of the main layer of Ethereum

The lack of use may be related to several factors. On the one hand, the rise of second -layer solutions (L2), as base or arbitrum (ARB), which process transactions outside the main Ethereum chain and then record them in lots, has reduced the amount of direct transactions in the base layer.

While these solutions improve scalability and reduce costs for users, they also decrease ETH burning, since Less transactions in the main layer They involve less burn base rates.

According to the on-Chain Grow the Pie analysis site, the number of transactions based (blue line in the following graph) and arbitrum (green line) has consistently exceeded those recorded in the main Ethereum chain (gray line) since April 2024:

On the other hand, competition with other networks linked to decentralized finances (Defi), such as Solana (Sol) or BNB Chain (BNB), could be deviating Ethereum activity.

The broadcast exceeds burning since April 2024

According to the Ultrasound Money site, from The Merge, in September 2022, until April 2025, almost 2 million ETH have burned, but more than 2,142,000 ETH have been issued to reward the validators.

That same source reveals that, in that period, the broadcast has surpassed burning in around 180,000 eth, which It is equivalent to a net increase in the supply of 0.858% annual at the time of this article from the implementation of EIP-1559.

However, ETH supply increase over the burning of that Token began to be noticed more marked since April 2024, when the broadcast began to constantly overcome burning.

Implications for the Ethereum ecosystem

The impact of this inflationary period is not trivial. An increase in ETH supply, without corresponding growth in demand, could press its value in the market.

For users and developers who depend on Ethereum, this could translate into less confidence in Ether as an active. In addition, the validators, which continue to receive new ETH emissions, could benefit in the short term, but a decrease in the value of ETH It would also affect your long -term income.

On the other hand, inflation could encourage developers to look for ways to increase the activity in the main layer of Ethereum, either through new applications or improvements in the protocol that make more attractive transactions directly on the network. For example, updates, such as the imminent sirty, could lead to improvements of scalability or efficiency of the L1, promoting its adoption.

In conclusion, the lack of use of Ethereum has led to an inflationary period that began to consolidate since April 2024 and has intensified from February 2025 to the present.