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

KAIA is inflationary by design: the Kaia chain mints a fixed 9.6 KAIA in every block, which came to 74.61M KAIA in the last 90 days, while the fee burn destroyed only 126.6K KAIA. Net supply grew +1.16% in 90 days. Over the next 90 days, three scheduled burns of unpaid contribution rewards worth about 7.34M KAIA trim that to about +1.04%, but Kaia has no supply cap and no halving, so the mint keeps running.

The verdict, in one paragraph

On-chain, KAIA supply rose from 6.37B to 6.45B between Jul 22 and Oct 20 2026, a net +1.16% of the 6.45B KAIA in circulation, and we project about +1.04% for the next 90 days. Market data trackers show +10.15% for the same 90 days, a gap of about 9 points. That gap is not new coins: the supply figure those trackers read sat near 5.86B KAIA every day until Jul 28 2026 and then jumped 519M KAIA in one day on Jul 29 2026 to catch up with the chain. Without that one-day recount they read about +1.29%, close to our number, so no data-conflict warning is shown. KAIA is a fixed-mint chain whose burns are too small to offset its issuance.

Sell pressure: where new KAIA comes from

Protocol inflation is the whole sell side. Every Kaia block mints 9.6 new KAIA, and the chain produced 7.77M blocks in the 90 days, a little slower than one a second. That is 74,613,456 KAIA of new supply, about 829,000 a day. Kaia's own supply counter rose by exactly that amount, so the figure is the chain's own record, not an estimate. The new KAIA is split four ways: 40% to stakers, 25% to the Kaia Ecosystem Fund, 25% to the Kaia Infrastructure Fund and 10% to the new contribution reward pool. The mint is a fixed amount per block, so the next 90 days repeat the same figure.

Vesting unlocks are 0. KAIA has no locked investor or team bucket left: almost the whole supply already counts as circulating, with only about 140K KAIA outside it, and unlock trackers show no Kaia unlock event in the next 90 days.

Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are 0. The two Foundation funds and the reward pool are large, but every one of those wallets already counts as circulating. When the Kaia Infrastructure Fund sent 20M KAIA to its spending wallet on Sep 2 2026, coins moved between holders and no new supply appeared. The coins these funds receive are counted once, when they are minted.

Long-term locks and bankruptcy releases are 0. No estate, trustee or long lock is releasing KAIA.

Buy pressure: where new KAIA goes

There is no programmatic buyback. The Kaia Foundation describes a buyback and burn paid for by network fees as a later goal, with no date set, so that row stays at 0.

The protocol fee burn destroys half of every transaction fee. Over the 90 days it removed 126,587 KAIA, about 1,400 a day, which is less than 0.2% of the KAIA minted in the same period. A sample of blocks across the window confirms the half-burned share. We keep the same rate for the next 90 days.

There is no Foundation buy: the funds only receive new KAIA and spend it. New long-term locks are 0 as well. KAIA can be staked, and the contribution reward asks users to stake 10 KAIA for every 1 USDT they deposit, but staked KAIA still counts as circulating, so staking takes nothing out of the float.

The new piece is the unpaid reward burn. Since Jul 23 2026 a tenth of each block's new KAIA goes to a contribution reward pool with a budget of about 2.5M KAIA a month. Rewards are paid only for USDT deposits backed by staked KAIA, and few users joined: the first month paid 36,421 KAIA and the second 58,433 KAIA. Everything unpaid is burned. The burns are set for Oct 21 2026 (2,463,579 KAIA), Nov 21 2026 (2,441,567 KAIA) and Dec 21 2026 (about 2.43M KAIA, the final figure comes in the November report). Together that is about 7.34M KAIA in the next 90 days, roughly a tenth of the mint. None of it was burned in the last 90 days.

Foundation and overhang

Four Foundation-controlled balances matter for KAIA. The Kaia Ecosystem Fund holds about 163.49M KAIA, and it received 2.4 KAIA per block in the window with no outflow at all. The Kaia Infrastructure Fund minting wallet holds about 62.50M KAIA after its 20M transfer on Sep 2 2026, and its spending wallet holds about 10.59M KAIA, down from 12.21M as it paid projects. The contribution reward pool holds about 7.35M KAIA, most of which is due to be burned. Monthly spending votes on the Kaia governance forum decide how the Ecosystem Fund is used.

All four sit inside the circulating count, so spending from them moves coins in the market without adding new supply. We read these balances from the chain at every rebuild. If any of them falls between refreshes into a wallet outside the float, that outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh, and if the reward pool sends coins anywhere other than a burn, we count them as sold.

How KAIA compares to other proof-of-stake Layer 1 chains

KAIA belongs to the group of uncapped proof-of-stake Layer 1s with a fixed mint per block. Its issuance does not change with the amount staked and does not fall over time: 9.6 KAIA a block is about 4.7%a year of today's supply, and the rate only changes by governance vote. Ethereum works differently: its issuance rises and falls with the total stake, and it burns the whole base fee, so busy periods can cancel out much of its new supply. Kaia burns only half of each fee, and its fees are small, so its fee burn removes well under 1% of the mint.

A large part of the KAIA mint also goes to funds rather than to stakers. Half of each block reward feeds the Kaia Ecosystem Fund and the Kaia Infrastructure Fund, which spend on grants, infrastructure and partners. Chains that pay nearly all new coins to stakers put that supply in the hands of holders who often keep staking; a fund mint reaches the market as fast as the fund spends it.

The unpaid reward burn makes KAIA a mixed case. Like exchange tokens with scheduled burns, Kaia now has dated burn events, but its burns are capped by the reward budget, so even if no one earned a single reward the burn could take back at most a tenth of the mint. Only a cut to the 9.6 KAIA mint, or a fee-funded buyback, could make KAIA supply shrink.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Oct 21 2026: the first burn of unpaid contribution rewards, 2,463,579 KAIA. It is the first time this mechanism removes supply on-chain.

Oct 21 2026: JPYC, a yen stablecoin, also starts counting toward the contribution reward. More deposits would mean more rewards paid and smaller burns.

Nov 21 2026: the second burn, 2,441,567 KAIA, and the November report with the third month's final burn figure, due on Dec 21 2026.

Any governance proposal on the block mint. The Kaia Foundation has said a review of the issuance rate comes after the reward change, with no date yet; a cut to the 9.6 KAIA mint would change this reading more than anything else.

Monthly spending votes for the Ecosystem Fund and transfers from the Infrastructure Fund. They add no new supply, but they show how fast fund-held KAIA reaches the market.

Summary

KAIA supply is growing: the Kaia chain mints a fixed 9.6 KAIA in every block, which added 74.61M KAIA in the last 90 days, while burning half of each fee removed only 126.6K KAIA, for a net +1.16%. Burns of unpaid contribution rewards, about 7.34M KAIA on Oct 21, Nov 21 and Dec 21 2026, cut the next 90 days to about +1.04%. The key risk for holders is that half of each block's mint goes to Foundation funds that spend it into the market. Kaia has no supply cap and no halving, so only a governance cut to the mint can change the direction.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of KAIA, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 20 2026.