What is the Aster (ASTER) inflation rate?

+3.57% a year, and +2.58% in the next 90 days. That is new ASTER minus what is burned or bought back, checked Oct 14 2026.

Is ASTER inflationary or deflationary?

Inflationary: ASTER's supply is growing, about +3.57% a year.

Where does new ASTER supply come from?

Stakers get 450K ASTER a week from a locked pool, paid in 2.25M blocks: 4.5M in the last 90 days, about 6.75M next. On Nov 4 2026 the last airdrop pays out about 63.38M ASTER; the team share stays locked until Sep 17 2027.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework · Inflation Analysis

ASTER Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Mixed last 90D · projected to grow

ASTER supply grew only a little in the last 90 days, and it is set to grow faster in the next 90. Over the 90 days to Oct 14 2026, Aster paid stakers 4.5M ASTER from a locked pool and nothing left the market, so net supply rose +0.17%. The MrNasdog Pressure Framework projects +2.58% for the next 90 days, mostly because the last ASTER airdrop pays out about 63.38M ASTER on Nov 4 2026. The 99% fee buyback and the burn are real, but the buyback goes back to stakers and the burn takes coins from the locked team share, so neither shrinks the tradable supply.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Our ledger reads ASTER at +0.17% net over the last 90 days and +2.58% over the next 90. The inflation monitor reads +1.23%, a gap of 1.06 percentage points, which is above our 0.5-point limit, so the coin page carries a ⚠ monitor gap note. We traced the gap to its source: the supply figure the monitor reads counts the coins sitting in the burn address as circulating. So when Aster burned 26.65M ASTER from the locked team wallet between Jul 13 and Oct 5 2026, that figure went up instead of down, which explains about 0.99 points of the gap. Those coins were never for sale and are now destroyed, so our number stays. In one line: ASTER is quiet now and inflationary on the next airdrop, with a burn that works on locked coins rather than on the market.

Sell pressure: where new ASTER comes from

Protocol inflation comes from staking. Since a change on Mar 30 2026, the ecosystem pool, a locked wallet that still holds 1.24B ASTER, releases coins only as staking rewards: 450,000 ASTER a week, 150,000 as base pay and 300,000 as loyalty rewards. On-chain the pool sends the coins in blocks of 2.25M ASTER about every 35 days. Two blocks landed in this window, on Aug 17 and Sep 21 2026, so 4.5M ASTER reached stakers. On the same rhythm, three more are due around Oct 26 2026, Nov 30 2026 and Jan 4 2027, about 6.75M ASTER in the next 90 days.

Vesting unlocks were zero in the last 90 days, but they are the big item ahead. Stage 6, the last trading airdrop, gave users a choice: claim half in May 2026 and burn the rest, or wait six months and take everything on Nov 4 2026. Almost everyone waited. Only 620,608 ASTER was settled early, so about 63.38M ASTER is due on Nov 4 2026. It still sits in the locked airdrop wallet today, and the previous stage paid out its waiting half from that same wallet in one move on Jun 9 2026. The team share is not part of this: its cliff moved from Sep 17 2026 to Sep 17 2027, so team vesting is zero for the next year.

Foundation and unscheduled unlocks were zero: none of the locked wallets released coins outside the staking blocks. Long-term locks and bankruptcy are zero too: no estate or trustee holds ASTER. The token's on-chain total of 8B did not move during the window, so no new coins were minted.

Buy pressure: where new ASTER goes

The programmatic buyback is large in dollars but books zero on our ledger. Since Jun 17 2026, 99% of the exchange's fees buy ASTER every day in the market, roughly 23M ASTER over these 90 days. Every coin bought is paid to stakers at the next weekly epoch. That moves coins from sellers to stakers, but they stay in the tradable supply, so nothing is taken off the market.

The burn is real but also books zero. For every ASTER bought back, Aster burns one from a reserve, starting with the team allocation, every two weeks, until total supply falls to 3B. We read every burn on-chain: 23.57M ASTER left the team wallet for the burn address on six burn days from Jul 27 to Oct 5 2026, and the burn address grew by the same amount. Because the team coins were locked and never counted as tradable, burning them shrinks the locked part of ASTER, not the market float. Foundation buying is zero. New long-term locks are zero as well: staking locks last up to four years, but staked ASTER still counts as circulating.

Foundation and overhang

Five locked wallets hold most of ASTER. The airdrop reserve holds 2.92B ASTER, unchanged since Jun 9 2026, and pays the 63.38M on Nov 4 2026. The ecosystem pool holds 1.24B and only pays stakers. The treasury holds 560M, untouched since launch and released only through governance. The team wallet holds 370.4M, down from 400M because the burns come out of it first. A fifth project wallet holds 198.3M and did not move. Outside these, 313.6M ecosystem tokens unlocked before March 2026 sit in one project wallet that only passes the staking blocks along, and the buyback wallet keeps only dust. We read every one of these wallets each rebuild; if any balance falls between refreshes for a reason other than a burn or a staking block, that outflow enters our foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next refresh.

How ASTER compares to other perpetual exchange tokens

Perpetual exchange tokens split on one question: does the fee money take coins off the market, or hand them to someone else? Hyperliquid's HYPE uses its fee fund to buy HYPE and keep it, so the bought coins leave the tradable supply. ASTER buys with 99% of fees, a larger share than most, but it pays every bought coin to stakers, so the buyback rewards holders without reducing the float. dYdX sits in between, buying DYDX with part of its fees and staking it from the treasury.

ASTER's burn is also unusual. Most burning tokens destroy coins that were bought from the market. ASTER burns a matching amount from its locked team reserve, which cuts the long-run maximum (the plan ends at 3B total) without touching today's tradable supply. That makes ASTER's supply story a slow-release one: about a third of the 7.79B left after burns is circulating, and the rest is in locked wallets whose release depends on airdrops, staking pay and, from Sep 17 2027, team vesting.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Nov 4 2026: the Stage 6 airdrop pays the waiting half in full, about 63.38M ASTER, the largest single addition in the window.

Around Oct 26 2026, Nov 30 2026 and Jan 4 2027: the next 2.25M staking blocks from the ecosystem pool.

Every two weeks from Oct 19 2026: the next team burns. They follow the buyback, so busier trading means bigger burns; they shrink the locked team share, not the market supply.

Any new airdrop stage or a treasury vote: the airdrop reserve still holds 2.92B ASTER and the treasury 560M. A new stage or a governance release would be new sell pressure we would add at the next refresh.

Summary

ASTER grew by only +0.17% in the last 90 days and is projected to grow +2.58% in the next 90, almost all of it from the 63.38M ASTER Stage 6 airdrop payout on Nov 4 2026. Aster spends 99% of its fees on ASTER and burns a matching amount, but the bought coins go to stakers and the burn comes from locked team coins, so the tradable supply does not shrink. The main risk is the 2.92B ASTER still in the airdrop reserve and the 560M treasury, which can only be released through new decisions. The ceiling is the 7.79B left after burns, falling toward the 3B target as the burns continue.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of ASTER, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 14 2026.