IOTA Inflation Analysis · June 2026 · Supply growing with nothing to take it back

After the 2025 Rebased upgrade, IOTA mints 767,000 new IOTA every epoch as staking rewards — about 69M over 90 days — and unlocks roughly 67M more across seven bi-weekly ecosystem vesting cliffs, while no buyback and only a tiny fee burn remove anything. The MrNasdog Pressure Framework reads about +3.0% net to market. Our supply monitor reads +3.1% over the last 90 days — the two agree, so there is no data conflict.

The verdict, in one paragraph

For the 90-day window ending June 20 2026, the MrNasdog Pressure Framework reads IOTA at +3.0% net on the forward view, driven by Rebased staking emission and a recurring bi-weekly ecosystem unlock with no offset on the buy side. Our supply monitor reads the realized last-90-day change at +3.1% — current circulating about 4.49B against roughly 4.36B ninety days ago, a rise of about 136M IOTA. The gap between the framework and the monitor is only about 0.1 percentage points, well inside tolerance, so no monitor-gap chip is shown — the framework's primary read of staking emission plus scheduled unlocks lands on the same flow the monitor observes. IOTA is structurally inflationary: new supply arrives every epoch and every two weeks, and nothing burns or buys it back at a meaningful scale.

Sell pressure: where new IOTA comes from

Two mechanisms add IOTA. Sell #1 — protocol inflation — is the Rebased staking emission, about 69M IOTA over the next 90 days. IOTA is now its own delegated proof-of-stake layer-1 with no fixed cap; the protocol mints 767,000 new IOTA every epoch — roughly a day — and distributes them to validators and delegators as staking rewards. That constant per-epoch rate works out to about 280M a year, an initial inflation rate near 6% that eases gradually as the fixed mint becomes a smaller share of a larger supply. Sell #2 — vesting unlocks — is the second flow, about 67M IOTA. At the Rebased upgrade two ecosystem buckets of 552M each were created — a Swiss ecosystem association and an Abu Dhabi entity — and after a 10% launch unlock the remainder of each releases bi-weekly over four years, about 9.55M combined per release; seven of those cliffs fall inside this window, the next on Jun 24 2026.

Sell #3 — Foundation and unscheduled unlocks — is zero as a separate flow: the treasury and the original migrated allocation are already about 97.7% unlocked, and there is no evidence of a discretionary treasury release outside the bi-weekly schedule already counted in Sell #2. Sell #4 — long-term locked or bankruptcy — is zero, because no bankruptcy estate or court-ordered distribution applies to IOTA.

Buy pressure: where new IOTA goes

The buy side is effectively empty. Buy #1 — programmatic buyback — is zero: IOTA runs no protocol mechanism that spends revenue to buy IOTA back off the market. Buy #2 — protocol fee burn — exists but is immaterial: part of each transaction's computation fee is burned, but fees are tiny — on the order of 0.005 IOTA each — and network volume is low, so the amount removed over 90 days is well under 1M against roughly 136M of new supply. Buy #3 — Foundation buy — and Buy #4 — new long-term lock — are both zero, with no announced open-market buying and no fresh escrow; staking is liquid and re-stakeable rather than a new lock-up. With nothing material on the buy side, the full weight of emission and unlocks reaches the market unopposed.

Foundation and overhang

IOTA's main team-controlled overhang is the unvested remainder of the two 552M ecosystem buckets — the Swiss Tangle ecosystem association and the Abu Dhabi DLT foundation entity — which together still hold most of their original allocation behind the four-year bi-weekly schedule that drives Sell #2. These are not a static stockpile; they are a known, dated release that the framework already books as it fires. The original treasury and migrated supply are largely unlocked and circulating, so they no longer represent a hidden overhang. The framework re-checks the vesting calendar and chain emission on a roughly bi-weekly walk; if either ecosystem balance falls faster than the published schedule, the extra outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh.

How IOTA compares to other uncapped emission layer-1s

Before 2025, IOTA was a fixed-supply, feeless network with no staking rewards. The Rebased upgrade moved it into the class of uncapped, continuous-emission proof-of-stake layer-1s — structurally closer to chains like Cosmos-SDK networks or other delegated-PoS L1s than to the old feeless IOTA. Like those peers, IOTA now pays stakers from freshly minted supply, so dilution is the price of security. Unlike a hard-capped chain such as a halving-model coin, IOTA has no maximum supply; the mint is a constant 767,000 per epoch rather than a curve toward a ceiling.

The contrast worth drawing is with chains that pair emission with a real fee burn or buyback large enough to go net-deflationary. IOTA has a burn, but at current low transaction volume it removes almost nothing, so the emission and the bi-weekly unlocks dominate. That makes IOTA read as clearly, steadily inflationary in the near term — the burn could matter someday if usage scales sharply, but for now the active float keeps growing every epoch and every two weeks.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Watch the bi-weekly ecosystem unlocks beginning Jun 24 2026 — each releases about 9.55M IOTA and together they are roughly half of the forward sell flow. Watch transaction volume and the fee-burn rate: a sharp rise in on-chain activity is the only thing that would turn the burn into a meaningful offset against emission. Watch whether the share of supply staked keeps climbing past the roughly 43% already bonded, since heavier staking locks float without changing the mint. And watch for any governance proposal touching the emission rate or a treasury buyback, since either would be the first real change to the net reading.

Summary

IOTA is now an uncapped, delegated proof-of-stake layer-1 whose near-term supply grows from two sources: staking emission of about 69M over 90 days at a fixed 767,000 per epoch, and bi-weekly ecosystem vesting of about 67M, seven cliffs of which land in this window. With no buyback and only a token-sized fee burn, nothing material offsets that, so the framework reads about +3.0% net to market and the supply monitor agrees at about +3.1%. The key thing to watch is network usage: only a large jump in fee burn would slow the dilution. IOTA stays structurally inflationary until either its emission rate changes or activity scales enough for the burn to bite.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of IOTA, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Updated June 20, 2026.