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

Ethereum Classic (ETC) supply is growing at a steady, slow pace: +0.59% over the 90 days from Jul 26 to Oct 24 2026, and about +0.59% again over the next 90 days. Miners were paid 942,692 ETC of new coins, and nothing on the chain is burned or bought back, so every new ETC stays in the market. ETC has no team allocation, no vesting and no unlocks; the block reward is cut by 20% every 5 million blocks, which caps total supply at about 210.7M ETC.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the last 90 days the Ethereum Classic ledger reads +0.59% net new supply, and the next 90 days read about the same, +0.59%, because the block reward will not change again until block 30,000,001, close to two years away. Other trackers that follow ETC's market supply show +0.71% over the same stretch, a gap of 0.12 points. That is small enough that both readings agree, so no warning is shown on the coin page. In one line: Ethereum Classic is a quiet proof-of-work chain that adds about 0.6% of new coins every quarter and takes none back.

Sell pressure: where new ETC comes from

Mining is the only source of new ETC. Between Jul 26 and Oct 24 2026 the chain produced 573,894 blocks, one about every 13.6 seconds, and each one paid its miner 1.6384 ETC. That reward has applied since block 25,000,001 on Jul 22 2026, when the fifth 20% cut under the ECIP-1017 monetary policy took it down from 2.048 ETC. Ethereum Classic still pays for uncle blocks, the valid blocks that lose a race: the uncle's miner gets 0.0512 ETC and the block that includes it gets another 0.0512 ETC. The window held 23,669 uncles, worth about 2,424 ETC. Together, Sell #1, protocol inflation, comes to 942,692 ETC over 90 days, about 10,474 ETC a day. Transaction fees also go to miners, but those are coins that already exist, so they add nothing.

Sell #2, vesting unlocks, is 0. Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum chain from July 2015; the coins from the 2014 sale and the genesis block were all liquid from day one, and there is no investor or team schedule left to run. Sell #3, foundation and unscheduled unlocks, is also 0: no foundation or company holds a reserve that sits outside the market count, and circulating supply and total supply are the same. Sell #4, long-term locked or bankruptcy coins, is 0; no court estate or locked pile of ETC is waiting to be paid out.

Buy pressure: where new ETC goes

Nothing on Ethereum Classic removes coins. Buy #1, programmatic buyback, is 0: no contract, company or treasury buys ETC back. Buy #2, protocol fee burn, is also 0. Ethereum adopted a base-fee burn in 2021, but Ethereum Classic never did; the latest block header on Oct 24 2026 still carries no base fee, and the miner of a recent block received exactly 1.6384 ETC plus every fee paid in it. A few people send coins to dead addresses by mistake: the zero address and the common dead address received about 11.1 ETC in the window, too small to count and not a protocol mechanism.

Buy #3, foundation buy, is 0: no project body buys ETC. Buy #4, new long-term lock, is 0: Ethereum Classic runs on proof of work, so there is no staking that could take coins off the market. Total buy pressure over 90 days is therefore 0 ETC, and the next 90 days look the same.

Foundation and overhang

Ethereum Classic has no team-controlled overhang. There was no team allocation when the chain split from Ethereum in 2016, and no foundation, DAO or company treasury holds coins outside the circulating count. Circulating supply and total supply are the same number, 158.80M ETC, so every wallet on the chain already counts as part of the market. The ETC Cooperative, a small nonprofit that funds client work, last reported about 60,085 ETC at Sep 30 2025 and sells a few thousand each quarter to cover costs; those coins are already counted.

The largest single holder is an old US trust with 10.85M ETC at Jun 30 2026, close to 7% of all coins. It issued no new shares in the first half of 2026 and runs no redemption program, so its pile neither grows nor shrinks for now. It is a holder of coins already in circulation, not a reserve that could add new supply. We re-check these balances at every rebuild; if any of them were ever moved out of a pool the market does not count, that outflow would enter Sell #3 at the next refresh.

How ETC compares to other proof-of-work chains

Ethereum Classic sits between Bitcoin and the newer proof-of-work chains. Like Bitcoin, ETC has a hard cap and a built-in schedule of reward cuts, but it cuts by 20% every 5 million blocks (about every 2.2 years) instead of halving every four years. Bitcoin's supply grows about 0.2% per quarter after its 2024 halving; ETC's grows about 0.6%, three times as fast, because its reward is still large compared with its supply. Neither chain burns fees, so both are pure issuance stories.

Against Ethereum, its own twin, ETC took the opposite path. Ethereum moved to proof of stake, pays validators with no cap and burns part of every fee; Ethereum Classic kept mining, a cap and no burn. Ethereum's 90-day growth sits near 0.2% because its burn and its stake-based pay keep issuance low, while ETC's fixed per-block reward makes it close to three times faster. What ETC lacks is any coin sink: when demand falls, nothing on the chain offsets the steady flow of new coins that miners sell to pay for power.

What to watch in the next 90 days

First, the block time. ETC issuance is paid per block, so if blocks come faster than the window's 13.6-second average, more ETC is minted in 90 days; if hash power leaves and blocks slow, less is.

Second, Binance closes its mining pool on Nov 10 2026, and miners who used it must point their machines to other pools. Because ETC adjusts its difficulty every block, this should change block times only briefly.

Third, the Olympia upgrade. It would add an EIP-1559 style base fee but send that fee to a community treasury instead of burning it. As of Oct 24 2026 it is still a draft with no main-network date, and on the Oct 23 2026 community call a core developer said barely anyone supports it. Even if it passed, it would move existing coins, not destroy them.

Fourth, the trust's next quarterly report for Sep 30 2026, expected in early November, which will show whether its 10.85M ETC holding changed.

Summary

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is a capped proof-of-work coin whose supply grows about 0.59% every 90 days, entirely from mining rewards of 1.6384 ETC per block. Nothing is burned, bought back or locked, and there are no team unlocks, so the full 942,692 ETC of new coins each quarter reaches the market. The main risk is that miners sell that flow into thin demand; the ceiling is the 210.7M cap, and the next 20% reward cut arrives at block 30,000,001, around September 2028.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of ETC, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 24 2026.