ATOM · staking rewards at the ceiling, and nothing on the other side.
ATOM is the staking asset of the Cosmos Hub — about 521.6M circulating, with no maximum supply and no locked bucket left: the chain's own supply figure and the market's circulating figure agree to within 4,702 ATOM. Every ATOM in existence is already tradable, and the chain keeps making more.
Sell pressure. About 15.96M ATOM was minted over 90 days. The reward rate is pinned at its 10% ceiling because only 62.6% of ATOM is bonded, under the 67% target — and because blocks arrive faster than the setting assumes, the real pace is closer to 12.6% a year.
Buy pressure. Zero. There is no buyback, no fee burn and no lockup — fees are handed straight back to stakers, so nothing at all comes off the other side.
Net. About +3.06% to market over 90 days, and +3.16% projected for the next 90 — heading up, with no mechanism in place to slow it.
Staking rewards are the only thing that creates ATOM, and they are running at the ceiling: the mint rate sits at its 10% maximum because only 62.6% of ATOM is bonded, under the 67% target the chain aims for. The chain pays a fixed slice of new ATOM every block, and blocks arrive faster than the setting assumes, so real issuance lands near 12.6% a year — about 15.96M ATOM created over the window, 98% to stakers and 2% to the community pool.
There is no unlock calendar. The 2017 fundraiser and genesis allocations finished releasing years ago, and the chain's own supply figure sits within 4,702 ATOM of the published circulating figure — so there is no locked bucket left to release.
Two team-controlled pools are tracked: the community pool, holding 10.6M ATOM that only a passing vote can spend, and the Interchain Foundation treasury, whose ATOM position is its largest crypto holding but is not published as a token count. Only three proposals passed in the window — two chain upgrades and one funding request paid in a stablecoin, not ATOM. No public evidence of release in window — monitored.
There is no Cosmos Hub estate, no trustee and no court-ordered ATOM distribution. Nothing can enter the market from this row.
Cosmos Hub runs no buyback. There is no protocol contract that buys ATOM and no revenue-funded purchase programme, so nothing offsets the mint from this row.
The Hub does not burn transaction fees — every fee is collected and paid straight back out to stakers and the community pool, exactly like new issuance. The only ATOM ever destroyed is the 500 ATOM deposit of a proposal the chain votes down with veto, which came to roughly 6,500 ATOM across the window: about 0.001% of supply, too small to register.
Neither the Interchain Foundation nor Cosmos Labs has disclosed an open-market ATOM purchase. No public evidence of purchase in window — monitored.
No new lockup contract exists. Bonded ATOM can be withdrawn after a 21-day unbonding wait, which is a delay rather than a lock, and the lock-based staking multipliers in the 2026 tokenomics draft have never been put to a vote.
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