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

STRK supply is growing: between Jul 29 and Oct 27 2026 about 420.0M STRK of new supply reached holders, +5.53% of the 7.59B STRK in circulation, and the next 90 days look the same. Almost all of it comes from the investor and team lock-up, which releases up to 127M STRK on the 15th of every month until Mar 15 2027, plus a staking mint of 39.0M STRK. Starknet burns no fees and buys no STRK back, so nothing offsets it; other trackers read +12.46% because they also count coins the Starknet Foundation hands out.

The verdict, in one paragraph

STRK's net supply change over the last 90 days is +5.53%, and the projection for the next 90 days is also +5.53%, because three more lock-up tranches fall due on Nov 15 2026, Dec 15 2026 and Jan 15 2027. Market trackers show +12.46% for the same window, a gap of 6.93 percentage points, so the STRK coin page carries a warning note. The difference is real new float that our ledger does not book: the official circulating figure also rises when the Starknet Foundation hands out STRK it holds, and those hand-outs come with no published amounts or dates. On the numbers we can date, STRK is an unlock-driven, inflationary token with no buy side at all.

Sell pressure: where new STRK comes from

The first STRK sell row is protocol inflation from staking. Starknet pays validators and delegators in newly minted STRK every hour, at a yearly rate that rises with the share of supply that is staked. About 1.74B STRK is staked today, around 17% of all coins, and the total STRK supply on Ethereum rose by 39.0M STRK in the 90 days, roughly 433K STRK a day. Part of that reward goes to people who stake Bitcoin on Starknet, but it is all paid in new STRK.

The second STRK sell row, vesting unlocks, is the big one. Tokens for Starknet's investors and early team members unlock on a fixed calendar: up to 127M STRK on the 15th of each month from Apr 15 2025 to Mar 15 2027. The tranches of Aug 15, Sep 15 and Oct 15 2026 put 381.0M STRK into the market in this window, and the Nov 15, Dec 15 and Jan 15 tranches add another 381.0M STRK in the next one. After Oct 15 2026, 635M STRK are still locked.

The third STRK sell row, Foundation and unscheduled unlocks, books 0. About 1.96B STRKis held back by the Starknet Foundation and StarkWare, and under Starknet's own rule those coins only count as circulating once they are granted, donated or otherwise handed out. Hand-outs for grants and ecosystem programs clearly happen, but no amounts or dates are published in advance, so this ledger does not guess at them. An 800M STRK held-back wallet did send 350M STRK on Sep 10 and Oct 17 2026, but those coins went to other held-back wallets and stayed out of the circulating count.

The fourth STRK sell row, long-term locked or bankruptcy supply, is 0. No bankruptcy estate or court-held pile of STRK exists.

Buy pressure: where new STRK goes

Starknet has no programmatic buyback. No contract, treasury or company buys STRK back, and network fees are not used to buy the coin, so the first STRK buy row is 0.

Starknet also has no fee burn. Since Sep 1 2025 every Starknet fee is paid in STRK, but the whole fee goes to the network operator, who converts part of it to ETH to pay Ethereum for posting data. The burn row is 0; the dead address gained less than 1 STRK in the 90 days.

The Starknet Foundation does not buy STRK; it hands STRK out. Staking is not a long-term lock either: staked STRK can leave after a 7-day wait and still counts as circulating, so the 1.74B STRK staked removes nothing from supply. Both rows are 0, which leaves STRK with no buy side.

Foundation and overhang

Of the 10.18B STRK that exist, about 2.59B STRK are outside the circulating count. 635M STRK of that is the rest of the investor and team lock-up, which unlocks in five tranches between Nov 15 2026 and Mar 15 2027. The other 1.96B STRKbelongs to the Starknet Foundation and StarkWare allocations (grants, community programs, the Foundation treasury and its strategic reserve, donations, and StarkWare's own share) that have not been handed out yet. The largest single holdings on Ethereum are a contract holding 1.00B STRK that did not move in the window and a wallet that fell from 1.15B to 800M STRK.

We read these balances again at every rebuild. If a held-back wallet's balance falls and the coins reach the market between refreshes, that outflow enters the Foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next refresh.

How STRK compares to other Ethereum layer 2 chains

Most Ethereum layer 2 tokens are governance tokens: their supply grows through an insider unlock calendar, and any new minting needs a separate governance vote. STRK has the calendar too, but it also has a protocol mint that runs by itself: since staking went live, Starknet adds new STRK for stakers every hour, so STRK supply has no hard cap and keeps rising after the unlocks end. On an unlock-only token, inflation stops when the last insider tranche unlocks; on STRK, the staking mint carries on at about 1.6% a yearat today's stake.

STRK also differs on fees. Starknet requires fees to be paid in STRK, which most layer 2 tokens do not, so every user has to touch the coin. But none of that fee is burned, unlike Ethereum's base-fee burn, and none is used for buybacks, so busier use does not take STRK off the market.

The practical point for STRK holders is timing. At +5.53%in 90 days, STRK is still in the heavy part of its unlock calendar, and the gap to market trackers shows that Foundation hand-outs add more on top. That heavy phase ends with the last lock-up tranche on Mar 15 2027, after which the staking mint and the Foundation's hand-outs are the only sources of new STRK.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Nov 15 2026, Dec 15 2026 and Jan 15 2027: the next three investor and team tranches of up to 127M STRK each, together 381M STRK.

The 1st of each month: the official circulating figure has jumped on the 1st of Aug, Sep and Oct 2026 as the Starknet Foundation handed out coins; a large Nov 1 or Dec 1 2026 jump would widen the gap to the market trackers.

The independent layer 1 research:on Oct 22 2026 a non-binding Starknet poll gave 93.52% support to studying a move to its own post-quantum chain. Any real change to STRK's supply or staking would need later votes, which we will watch on the governance forum.

The staking share:the staking mint grows with the amount staked, so a rise from today's 1.74B STRK staked would lift the new supply from staking. A forum proposal of Oct 15 2026 to make the Bitcoin share of rewards float would change who gets the reward, not how much is minted.

Summary

STRK supply grew +5.53% in the 90 days to Oct 27 2026 and is projected to grow about the same in the next 90 days. The growth comes from the investor and team lock-up, which releases up to 127M STRK a month until Mar 15 2027, plus a staking mint of about 39.0M STRK a quarter. Starknet burns no fees and runs no buyback, so nothing offsets the new coins. The key risk beyond the calendar is the 1.96B STRK the Starknet Foundation and StarkWare still hold, which reaches the market as it is handed out; trackers that count those hand-outs read +12.46%.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of STRK, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 27 2026.