SKY Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Mixed flows · supply roughly steady
Sky (SKY) supply is roughly steady: the circulating count grew +0.30% over the 90 days from Jul 26 to Oct 24 2026, and we project about −0.13% for the next 90 days. No new SKY was minted. Instead, the Sky treasury paid stakers 172.09M SKY while the Smart Burn Engine bought back 102.36M SKY with stablecoin profit. Since the Oct 12 2026 reset the staking stream is smaller than the buyback, so SKY is set to shrink slightly.
The verdict, in one paragraph
Over the last 90 days the circulating SKY supply rose by 69.74M SKY, a net +0.30% of the 23.42B SKY in circulation. Other trackers show +0.29% for the same 90 days, a gap of 0.003 points, so the two readings agree and the coin page carries no warning note. For the next 90 days we project −0.13%: the treasury now pays stakers about 99.53M SKYover 90 days, while the buyback at its current pace and today's price would take about 130.01M SKYoff the market. Both forces are reset by Sky governance every month, so this is a reading of today's settings, not a fixed schedule. SKY is a recycled-treasury token: no minting, a buyback that refills the treasury, and a staking stream that hands most of it back.
Sell pressure: where new SKY comes from
Staking rewards are the only real source of new circulating SKY. SKY holders who stake in the Sky staking engine earn SKY every week, and those coins come out of the Sky treasury, not from fresh minting. Between Jul 26 and Oct 24 2026 the treasury sent 172.09M SKY into the staking reward pot in 18 weekly payments. The stream changed three times inside the window. In late July it paid about 3.19M SKY a day; the Aug 17 2026 governance spell cut it to about 1.08M a day; the Sep 13 2026 spell raised it to about 1.59M a day; and the Oct 12 2026 spell set it to 99.53M SKY over 90 days, about 1.11M SKY a day. Since October the stream is sized from what the buyback actually bought the month before, so it follows the buyback instead of a price average.
Vesting unlocks are zero. SKY has no team or investor vesting: the only active vesting stream is the staking reward, and the vest contract that could mint new SKY has no live award. Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are also zero: the treasury is the only pile of SKY kept out of the circulating count, and its only outflows are the staking stream and the monthly burns. Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is zero; no estate or court-held SKY exists.
One flow looks large but adds nothing. Old MKR holders can still upgrade to SKY at 24,000 SKY per MKR, less a late-upgrade fee that rose to 5% in September 2026. In these 90 days they upgraded 5,974 MKR and received 137.05M SKY. That SKY was created years ago, sits in the upgrade pool and is already counted as circulating, so the MKR to SKY upgrade moves coins within the market rather than adding to it.
Buy pressure: where new SKY goes
The programmatic buyback is the main buy force. Sky earns a profit on the USDS stablecoin, and each month part of that profit funds the Smart Burn Engine, which buys SKY on the market and sends it to the treasury. Over the 90 days it made 2,027 small purchases and bought 102.36M SKY for 7.07M USDS, an average price of about $0.069. The pace rose during the window: about 36K USDS a day in late July, about 73K a day after Aug 17 2026, about 109K a day after Sep 13 2026, and about 101K USDS a daysince Oct 12 2026. At today's price of about $0.070, that pace buys roughly 130.01M SKY over the next 90 days.
The SKY burn counts as zero on its own. Sky burned 2.86M SKY on Sep 13 2026 and 7.37M SKYon Oct 12 2026, about one-sixth of each month's purchases, and total SKY supply fell by exactly those 10.23M SKY. But the burned coins came out of the treasury, so they had already left the market when the buyback bought them; counting them again would count the same coins twice. A foundation buy is zero: outside buyers such as listed companies and a large trading firm buy SKY that already circulates. A new long-term lock is zero: about 10.26B SKY is staked, up 80.92M in 90 days, but staked SKY can leave at any time and still counts as circulating.
Foundation and overhang
The Sky treasury is the one overhang that matters. It held 106.78M SKY on Jul 26 2026 and 26.81M SKY on Oct 24 2026: in those 90 days it took in 102.36M from buybacks, paid out 172.09M to stakers and burned 10.23M. It now holds less than one month of buybacks, so the staking stream depends on the buyback continuing. We read its balance on-chain every refresh.
Three other piles are watched but already count as circulating. A foundation safe holds 37.69M SKY, up from 1.10M on Jul 26 2026. The MKR upgrade pool holds 2.03B SKY: 1.99B reserved for the 82,794 MKR not yet upgraded, and 39.83M SKYof collected late-upgrade fees that governance could burn or move to the treasury. The two staking reward pots hold 85.63M and 19.55M SKY waiting to be claimed. If the treasury's balance falls between refreshes for any reason other than the staking stream, that outflow enters the foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next refresh.
How SKY compares to other DeFi buyback tokens
Most DeFi tokens with a buyback either burn what they buy or hand it to stakers. SKY does both, in a fixed monthly split: of the profit sent to buy SKY, about 82% of the coins go back to stakers and about 18% are burned. That makes SKY different from a pure burn token, where every coin bought is gone for good, and from a token that simply prints rewards, where staking adds new supply with nothing taking it back. For SKY the net effect comes from the one-month lag between buying and paying out, and from the burned share.
SKY also has no minting and no unlock calendar, which sets it apart from most newer DeFi tokens that still release team and investor coins every month. Its supply cannot rise unless governance mints; it has not done so in these 90 days, and the treasury that pays stakers has to be refilled by buying on the market. The trade-off is that the whole buy side depends on stablecoin profit: when the profit falls, the buyback shrinks, and the staking stream shrinks with it the next month.
What to watch in the next 90 days
The next monthly settlement, expected with the Nov 5 2026spell, should burn about one-sixth of October's purchases from the treasury and reset the staking stream from those purchases; with October buying near 1.38M SKY a day, the stream would rise a little. The December 2026 and January 2027 spells will repeat the same reset, and the current stream ends on Jan 10 2027 unless renewed. Watch the buyback pace, about 31 purchases of 3,300 USDS a day: a change to the timing or size in any spell moves the buy side at once. Watch the treasury balance, now 26.81M SKY, which is thin against a 1.11M a day payout. And watch the late-upgrade fee pool of 39.83M SKY: if governance burns it, that would take SKY off the market for real.
Summary
SKY, the staking and governance token of Sky, mints no new coins; its circulating supply moves only when the Sky treasury pays stakers and when the Smart Burn Engine buys SKY back. Over the 90 days to Oct 24 2026 the treasury paid out 172.09M SKY and bought back 102.36M SKY, so supply grew +0.30%. After the Oct 12 2026 reset the buyback is larger than the staking stream, and we project −0.13% for the next 90 days. The key risk is that both sides are reset by governance every month and depend on USDS profit, so a weaker month can flip the reading back to slow growth.
MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of SKY, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 24 2026.