HBAR Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Mixed flows · supply roughly steady
HBAR supply grew +0.47% in the last 90 days and should grow only about +0.09% in the next 90. Hedera never mints HBAR: all 50B coins were made at launch, and new supply only reaches the market when the Hedera Council releases coins from its own accounts — 207.85M HBAR this window, against 0 burned or bought back. The monitor reads +0.48%, so the two readings agree.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Over the 90 days to Oct 12 2026, Hedera's circulating supply rose by 207.85M HBAR, which is +0.47% of the 44.0B HBAR in circulation. The inflation monitor measured +0.48% over its own 90 days, a gap of just 0.005 percentage points, well inside our 0.5-point line, so no warning chip is shown. For the next 90 days the Council's own plan points to about 39.5M HBAR, or +0.09%. In one line: HBAR is a pre-minted coin whose only supply growth is a slow, Council-paced release from a reserve that still holds about 6.0B HBAR.
Sell pressure: where new HBAR comes from
Protocol inflation is 0. Hedera has no block reward and no mint. Stakers are paid from a reward pot that was filled in advance and already counts as circulating; that pot paid out about 0.51M HBAR a day and fell from 179.7M to 133.5M HBAR in the window. Paying stakers moves coins from one circulating account to another, so it adds nothing to supply.
Vesting unlocks came to 16.06M HBAR. This is the Council's coin plan, which pays staff and partners once a quarter; the latest payout landed on Sep 30 2026 and was spread across a handful of wallets the same day. The Council plans 36M HBAR for the next payout, which on past timing lands on the last day of the quarter, about Dec 31 2026, plus 0.39M HBAR under old purchase agreements.
Foundation and unscheduled releases were the big part: 191.79M HBAR. On Oct 1 2026 the Council moved 150M HBAR out of its reserve for running costs. On Aug 15 2026 it sent 40M HBAR to the ecosystem development program. Small monthly payments added 1.79M. For the next 90 days the Council's operating line shows only about 3.15M HBAR left, because the 150M it planned for the quarter already went out on Oct 1.
Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0. No court estate, trustee or long lock is holding HBAR to pay out later.
Buy pressure: where new HBAR goes
Every buy row is 0. Hedera runs no programmatic buyback. Hedera has no fee burn either: transaction fees are paid on to node operators, the staking reward pot and a fee account, all of which stay in circulation. We checked this both ways — circulating supply rose by exactly the coins that left the Council's reserve, with nothing missing that a burn would explain.
No Council or Foundation purchase of HBAR was found in the window. Staking does not count as a lock: about 12.95B HBAR is staked, but staked HBAR can be moved at any time and is counted as circulating, so it takes nothing out of the float.
Foundation and overhang
The main overhang is the Council reserve itself: about 6.0B HBAR spread across several hundred Council-controlled accounts, the largest holding about 600M. The Council publishes a plan each quarter, and the latest one lists 3.8B HBAR for ecosystem development through the Hedera Foundation. That same line has been planned for about a year; in that time only 40M moved, so we do not count the 3.8B as next-quarter supply. If it did move, the next-90-day reading would jump to about +8.7%.
Two large holders sit outside the reserve and already count as circulating. A wallet that gathered about 3.85B HBAR from early Hedera accounts on Aug 17 and 18 2026 now holds about 3.72B HBAR and has been paying out steadily; the staking reward pot holds 133.5M. Because both are already in the circulating count, their spending moves coins between holders rather than adding supply. On Sep 29 2026 the Council also reshuffled about 215M HBAR between its own reserve accounts, which changes nothing for supply. We read the reserve balances on every rebuild: if they fall between refreshes, the outflow enters the foundation row at the next refresh.
How HBAR compares to other pre-minted payment and enterprise chains
HBAR belongs to the group of coins that were fully created at launch and are released over time by the people who hold the reserve. That puts it closer to XRP and Stellar's XLM than to chains like Ethereum or Solana, which pay validators in brand-new coins every day. On a pre-minted chain the supply question is never "how fast is the mint", it is "how fast does the reserve holder let coins out".
The difference is in the rules around that release. XRP's reserve sits in on-chain escrow with a monthly ceiling, and every XRP fee is destroyed, so it has a small built-in burn. Hedera has neither: its release is decided by the Council quarter by quarter and shown in a public plan, and its fees are recycled to nodes and stakers rather than burned. That makes HBAR supply easy to read after the fact — every release is visible on the ledger — but harder to forecast, because the Council can let out much more or much less than planned.
Compared with chains that print new coins for staking, HBAR's staking is unusual: rewards come from a pot that was filled in advance, so staking does not dilute holders today. The trade-off is that the pot is running down at about 0.51M HBAR a day; a top-up from the reserve would show up as a new release.
What to watch in the next 90 days
The Council's quarterly coin plan payout, planned at 36M HBAR, is due around Dec 31 2026.
The 3.8B HBARecosystem development line in the Council's Q4 2026 plan: any large transfer to the Hedera Foundation would raise circulating supply at once.
The Council's next quarterly treasury update in early January 2027, which will show what was really released in Q4 2026 and the plan for Q1 2027.
The staking reward pot at 133.5M HBAR: a top-up from Council accounts would count as new supply.
The large circulating wallet holding about 3.72B HBAR: its payouts do not change supply, but they do decide how many coins reach traders.
Summary
HBAR is a pre-minted coin with no mint, no burn and no buyback, so its supply moves only when the Hedera Council releases coins from its reserve. That release came to 207.85M HBAR, or +0.47%, in the 90 days to Oct 12 2026, in line with the monitor's +0.48%, and the Council's own plan points to only about +0.09% next. The key risk is the 3.8B HBAR ecosystem line still sitting in the plan; the ceiling is the fixed 50B total, of which about 6.0B is still held back.
MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of HBAR, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 12 2026.