GNO Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Mixed flows · supply roughly steady
GNO, the token of Gnosis Chain and GnosisDAO, had a flat supply over the 90 days to Oct 19 2026: 0 GNO of new sell pressure, 0 GNO taken off the market and a net change of 0.00%, with the market read at −0.00%. The GNO token has no mint function, Gnosis Chain validators are paid from GNO the DAO already holds, and the coins the DAO buys back or took in through its treasury redemption stay in the DAO treasury. The supply is capped at 3M GNO, of which 2.64M circulate.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Over the 90 days from Jul 21 to Oct 19 2026, the GNO ledger nets to 0.00% of the circulating supply, and the next 90 days project the same 0.00%. The market supply reading for the same window is −0.00% (2,639,588 GNO to 2,639,552 GNO, a rounding wobble), so the gap is about 0.00 percentage points and no conflict flag is needed. On-chain, the GNO total stayed at 10M on Ethereum, the burned balance did not grow, and both vesting contracts held exactly the same amount at both ends of the window. GNO is a fixed-supply governance token with a treasury-funded staking subsidy: real coins move every day, but none enter or leave the float.
Sell pressure: where new GNO comes from
Protocol inflation is 0 GNO, and it cannot be anything else on the token itself. The GNO contract was deployed on Ethereum in 2017 with a fixed 10M total, and its code has only the standard transfer and approval functions, with no way to create coins. On Gnosis Chain, validators still earn GNO for their work, but the staking contract pays them out of its own balance, which the DAO refills: it sent 65,000 GNOthere on Jun 9 2026. The DAO's own Gnosis Chain plan calls this a treasury-funded subsidy. Because the DAO treasury already counts as circulating, the payout moves coins from one holder to another. The staking contract held 305,514 GNO at the start of the window and 283,399 GNO at the end.
Vesting unlocks are 0 GNO. GnosisDAO's 8-year vesting contract, which started on Nov 23 2020 with 8M GNO, still holds 3,852,259 GNO and keeps releasing until Nov 23 2028; about 1.76M GNO of that can already be claimed. These coins sit outside the 3M supply on purpose. A 2022 DAO vote set the target supply at 3M GNO, and a January 2025 vote claimed and burned 3,147,741 GNO straight from this contract on Jan 30 2025. Nothing left the contract during these 90 days.
Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are 0 GNO. A second vesting contract, for Gnosis Ltd, finished vesting on Nov 23 2025 and holds 360,411 GNO, exactly the gap between the 3M supply and the 2.64M that circulates. It can be claimed at any time, but it has paid out only three times: 75,000 GNO in December 2021, 10,000 in December 2022 and 50,000 on May 14 2025. It did not move in this window, and there is no public schedule for the next 90 days. Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0 GNO: there is no estate or trustee, and the roughly 350,000 GNO staked on Gnosis Chain already counts as circulating.
Buy pressure: where new GNO goes
The programmatic buyback books 0 GNO, even though it is real. The DAO's treasury manager said it bought about 7,800 GNO for $915K from July to September 2026, and 7,684 GNO reached the DAO treasury inside this window. Those coins are held, not burned, and the treasury is already part of the circulating supply, so the buying does not take anything out of the float.
The protocol fee burn is 0 GNO. Gas on Gnosis Chain is paid in xDAI, a dollar token, so using the chain burns no GNO. The zero address holds the 3,147,806 GNO burned in earlier years and did not grow.
The foundation buy row is also 0 GNO, and it holds this year's biggest GNO event. Holders approved a one-time treasury redemption on Jun 26 2026: anyone could hand in GNO for a share of the treasury's assets. When deposits closed on Jul 17 2026, 92 holders had handed in 111,074 GNO and 48,261 staked GNO, about 167,081 GNO in all. The coins went to the DAO treasury the same day, before this window started, and they were kept rather than burned, so the float did not shrink. New long-term locks are 0 GNO: staking is the only lock, staked coins count as circulating, and the staking contract shrank over the window.
Foundation and overhang
We track four GNO balances that could reach the market. The largest is the DAO vesting pot of 3,852,259 GNO, set aside to be burned; a claim that is not burned would be new supply. Next is the Gnosis Ltd vesting contract with 360,411 GNO, fully unlocked and unclaimed, the one balance outside the float today. The DAO treasury holds about 1.25M GNO (832,015 on Gnosis Chain and 414,468 on Ethereum, after it moved its Ethereum coins to a new safe in July) plus 56,257 staked GNO; this is where the buybacks and the redeemed coins sit. The staking contract holds 283,399 GNO. If the vesting pot or the Gnosis Ltd contract pays out coins that are not burned, that outflow goes into the sell side at the next check; a sale from the DAO treasury moves coins that already circulate.
How GNO compares to other proof-of-stake chain tokens
Most proof-of-stake chains pay validators with brand-new coins. Ethereum creates new ETH every epoch and burns part of each fee, and many other Layer 1 chains run yearly inflation of several percent to fund staking. GNO works differently: the token is capped and cannot be minted, so the staking reward is paid by the DAO treasury out of coins that already exist. For a GNO holder the cost of security shows up as the treasury spending its GNO, not as a growing supply. The DAO's own estimate is that this subsidy dilutes non-stakers by roughly 2.3% a year of their share of the treasury.
GNO also differs from tokens with a buyback-and-burn, such as BNB with its scheduled burns. GnosisDAO buys GNO and keeps it, so its buyback supports the price without shrinking the supply count. The one place GNO has burned in size is its own vesting pot, with more than 3.1M GNO destroyed in January 2025, and that burn removed coins that were never in the float.
What to watch in the next 90 days
First, the move of Gnosis Chain onto Ethereum, approved by the DAO on Aug 19 2026, with its first block targeted for December 2026 or January 2027: it ends staking and the treasury subsidy and frees about 350,000 staked GNO, coins that already circulate but could be sold once unlocked. Second, any claim from the 360,411 GNOGnosis Ltd vesting contract, which would be new supply the day it moves. Third, any claim from the DAO vesting pot: past claims went to the burn, and one that does not would be new supply. Fourth, the next quarterly treasury update in January 2027, which should show whether the buyback kept its pace of about 7,800 GNO a quarter, and whether the DAO proposes a fee-share or buyback tied to the new chain's revenue.
Summary
GNO's supply was flat over the 90 days to Oct 19 2026, at 0.00%, with the same projected for the next 90 days. The token is capped at 3M GNO with no mint function, Gnosis Chain stakers are paid from the DAO treasury, and the DAO keeps the GNO it buys back and the 167,081 GNO it took in through the July redemption. The main supply risk is a claim from the 360,411 GNO Gnosis Ltd vesting contract or an unburned claim from the 3.85M GNO DAO vesting pot; the main market risk is the 350,000 staked GNO freed when Gnosis Chain moves onto Ethereum.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of GNO, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 19 2026.