ALGO Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing

ALGO's circulating supply is growing, and the source is the Algorand Foundation, not the protocol. Over the last 90 days 113.43M ALGO entered the market — 94.53M from Foundation wallets and 18.90M in staking rewards — while only 122.3K ALGO of fees left it, for a net of +1.25% against +1.33% on the monitor. No ALGO is ever minted: all 10B coins have existed since genesis, so the growth can only continue while the Foundation still holds about 937M ALGO outside the float.

The verdict, in one paragraph

The MrNasdog Pressure Framework reads Algorand at +1.25% net over the last 90 days (Jul 6 to Oct 4 2026) and +0.77% over the next 90. The monitor, which measures the change in circulating ALGO directly, reads +1.33% over its own 90 days to Oct 1 2026. The gap is 0.08 percentage points, well inside the 0.5-point tolerance, so no warning chip is shown and both readings agree. The forward number is lower only because two large one-off Foundation payments, 30.00M and 12.63M ALGO, are not assumed to repeat. ALGO is a fixed-supply coin that behaves like an inflationary one: a foundation-released float, with steady staking rewards on top.

Sell pressure: where new ALGO comes from

Protocol inflation adds 18.90M ALGO over 90 days, and it is not inflation in the usual sense. Algorand never mints. Instead, every block pays its proposer a bonus plus half of that block's fees, and the money comes out of the fee sink, a Foundation-funded wallet that is counted outside the float. The bonus is about 8.26 ALGO per block now and falls by 1% every million blocks. In the window the fee sink paid out about 19.52M ALGO; 0.63M of that went to validators the Foundation runs itself, so 18.90M reached outside stakers and entered circulation. The Foundation refilled the sink three times to keep this going: 10.3M ALGO on Jul 10, 9.0M on Aug 19 and 10.0M on Sep 30 2026. For the next 90 days we project 18.37M ALGO, slightly less as the bonus steps down three more times.

Vesting unlocks are 0. Algorand's original release plan for early buyers, the team and the Foundation has run its course. There is no investor or team cliff left on the calendar; the coins that are still outside the float sit in Foundation wallets with no published schedule, which is why they show up in the next row instead.

Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are the largest source: 94.53M ALGO left Foundation wallets for outside hands. The biggest stream was the Foundation's steady selling programme: 36.36M ALGO moved from its selling wallet to a trading desk in nine lots between Jul 10 and Aug 24 2026. On Jul 17 2026 one wallet made a single 30.00M ALGO payment that was passed on in 1M to 6M lots within weeks, and on Sep 22 2026 another made a single 12.63M ALGO payment. Grants, the xGov community program and running costs make up the rest. Selling paused after late August and restarted with small lots on Oct 1 and Oct 2 2026. For the next 90 days we carry the recurring streams forward at the same pace, 51.90M ALGO, and set the two single payments to zero because nothing says they will repeat.

Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0. No estate, court trustee or long lock is paying ALGO out, and staking on Algorand has no lock, so there is nothing waiting to be released on a fixed date.

Buy pressure: where new ALGO goes

The buy side is almost empty. There is no programmatic buyback (0): no contract or treasury buys ALGO, and the Foundation is a seller, not a buyer. There is no protocol fee burn (0) either. Algorand fees are not destroyed; they go to the fee sink, which pays half of them back to block proposers. There was no Foundation buy (0) in the window.

New long-term locks are 0 as well. About 2.02B ALGO is staked online, roughly 80% of it by the community, but staking needs no lock-up and staked ALGO is still counted as circulating, so more staking takes nothing out of the float. The one real buy-side flow is the fees the fee sink keeps: about 122.3K ALGO in 90 days, which is roughly a thousand times smaller than the sell side.

Foundation and overhang

Everything that is not yet circulating belongs to the Algorand Foundation, and the count is exact. The Foundation publishes 74 active wallets and 230 legacy ones; together they hold 937.10M ALGO, and 10B minus that total matches the published circulating supply to within a few hundred ALGO. The largest part is about 883M ALGO in treasury wallets, including a 184.4M wallet the Foundation filled on Sep 30 2026 while merging older wallets. One legacy wallet still holds 29.5M ALGO and did not move this window. The fee sink holds 20.5M ALGO for staking rewards, and the two selling wallets hold 3.6M ALGO.

None of this has a release calendar. The Foundation reports what it spent each quarter (55.7M ALGO in the first quarter of 2026 and 43.3M in the second), and the chain shows it spent more in this window. We read every Foundation wallet at each rebuild; if any of these balances falls between rebuilds, the outflow enters the Foundation row at the next rebuild.

How ALGO compares to other proof-of-stake Layer 1s

Most proof-of-stake Layer 1s pay stakers by minting new coins. Ethereum and Solana create fresh supply every epoch, and Ethereum offsets a small part of it with a fee burn. Algorand is different: its 10B supply is fixed and fully created, so staking rewards are paid from coins that already exist. That makes ALGO's supply growth a question of how fast the Foundation releases its remaining share, not of a protocol inflation rate.

In that sense ALGO looks more like a coin with a large treasury overhang, such as Stellar or Hedera, where an organisation holds a big pile of pre-made coins and decides when to move them. The difference is that Algorand's staking bonus is a steady stream set by a fixed formula (about 18.9M ALGO a quarter), while the treasury spending is lumpy: one quarter can carry a single 30M payment and the next none. Unlike chains with a fee burn, Algorand has nothing that takes coins out of circulation for good, so there is no force pulling the net number below zero.

The ceiling is the clearest part of the comparison. With about 937M ALGO left outside the float, total circulating supply can rise by at most about 10% from here, ever. Chains that mint have no such limit.

What to watch in the next 90 days

First, the staking bonus steps down at round 66M (around Oct 15 2026), 67M (around Nov 16 2026) and 68M (around Dec 18 2026); each step cuts the per-block bonus by 1%, already included in our 18.37M forward figure. Second, the Foundation's selling: lots restarted on Oct 1 and Oct 2 2026 after a five-week pause, and a full return to the July pace would push the Foundation row above our forward figure. Third, the Foundation's third-quarter 2026 transparency report, which should give its own count of ALGO sold and spent from July to September. Fourth, any new single payment like the 30.00M ALGO one in July. Fifth, the fee sink balance (20.5M ALGO now): when it runs low, the Foundation refills it from its treasury, which keeps the reward stream going.

Summary

The MrNasdog Pressure Framework reads ALGO at +1.25% net over the last 90 days and +0.77% projected for the next 90, in line with the monitor's +1.33%. No ALGO is minted and none is burned: supply grows only as coins leave the Algorand Foundation, through staking rewards from the fee sink (18.90M ALGO) and through its selling, grants and one-off payments (94.53M ALGO). The key risk is the pace of Foundation releases, which has no published schedule and was faster this window than in either of the two quarters before. The ceiling is hard: about 937M ALGOremains outside the float, so circulating supply can never rise more than about 10% above today's 9.06B.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of ALGO, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 4 2026.