What is the Stellar (XLM) inflation rate?

+10.08% a year, and +2.52% in the next 90 days. That is new XLM minus what is burned or bought back, checked Oct 12 2026.

Is XLM inflationary or deflationary?

Inflationary: XLM's supply is growing, about +10.08% a year.

Where does new XLM supply come from?

No new XLM is made. The Stellar Development Foundation released 884.2M XLM from its wallets in 90 days, almost every week, and still holds 14.67B.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework · Inflation Analysis

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

Stellar (XLM) mints no new coins, yet its circulating supply keeps growing: the Stellar Development Foundation released a net 884.2M XLM into the market in the last 90 days, while only 672.7K XLM of fees left the float. Net, circulating XLM rose +2.52% in 90 days, and we project about the same for the next 90. The ceiling is fixed at about 50.00B XLM; the open question is only how fast the Foundation's 14.67B XLM reaches the market.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days to Oct 12 2026, Stellar's circulating supply grew a net +2.52% (884.2M XLM out of the Foundation, less 672.7K XLM of fees) on a base of 35.06B XLM. Our supply monitor, which reads the market's circulating figure, shows +2.64% for the same stretch, a gap of only 0.12 percentage points, inside our 0.5-point tolerance, so no warning flag is shown. Stellar is a fixed-supply network diluted by its own foundation: the protocol prints nothing, and every new circulating lumen comes from one treasury.

Sell pressure: where new XLM comes from

Protocol inflation is zero.Stellar used to add 1% a year to its supply, but that was switched off in 2019, and the network's own coin count did not move by a single lumen between Jul 14 and Oct 12 2026. In the same ledger record the fee count rose every day, so the number is live, not frozen. A future protocol vote by validators could in theory change this, so we keep watching it rather than calling it permanent.

Vesting unlocks are zero. XLM never had an investor or team vesting calendar. The time-locked accounts the Foundation used for its 2021 to 2023 releases are now empty, holding about 2 XLM each.

The Foundation release is the whole story: 884.2M XLM. The Stellar Development Foundation keeps 15 accounts that are not counted as circulating. Together they held 15.56B XLM on Jul 14 2026 and 14.67B XLM on Oct 12 2026. In between, they sent 992.9M XLM to more than 500 outside wallets and received 108.6M XLM back, mostly returns from wallets they had paid. That leaves a net 884.2M XLM, about 9.8M XLM a day, paid out in batches nearly every week. The pace is steady over a longer stretch too: the same accounts released 1.06B XLM in the 90 days before this window and 3.0B XLM over the last 12 months. Because the release happens almost every week, we project the same 884.2M XLM for the next 90 days.

Long-term locked supply adds nothing. The network upgrade reserve still holds 258.9M XLM for holders of the original 2014 tokens who never switched to the current network. No one claimed any of it in these 90 days, and it has no release date. Stellar has no bankruptcy estate releasing coins.

Buy pressure: where new XLM goes

Fees are the only drain: 672.7K XLM. Every Stellar transaction pays a small fee into a network pool that no account can spend. The pool grew from 10.15M XLM to 10.83M XLM in the window, about 7,500 XLM a day. Those coins are not destroyed, but they are out of the float, so we count them as buy pressure in a row of their own. The network upgrades on Sep 16 and Oct 1 2026 did not touch fees, and the amount per day held between 6,700 and 8,300 XLM, so we keep the same figure for the next 90 days.

There is no buyback and no fee burn. Stellar has no protocol buyback and the Foundation does not run one. The burn account from the big 2019 burn received only 0.21 XLM of dust since July. Nothing shows the Foundation buying XLM in the market, and there is no staking or new lock contract that takes coins out of circulation. Against 884.2M XLM released, the 672.7K XLM of fees absorbs less than 0.1% of the new supply.

Foundation and overhang

The overhang is large and sits with one holder. The Stellar Development Foundation holds 14.67B XLM, about 29% of all XLM and 42% as much as everything already circulating. It is split into four funds: Growth 5.33B, Product and Innovation 3.45B, Assets and Liquidity 3.32B and Development 2.57B. In early October the Foundation moved about 707M XLM from the other three funds into its Development accounts, on Oct 1 and Oct 7 2026; those are the accounts that pay out most often. Moves inside the Foundation add nothing to supply on their own.

The second overhang is the 258.9M XLM network upgrade reserve, which has not released anything. We read every one of these balances from the network at each rebuild. If any Foundation or reserve balance falls between two checks, the coins that left are added to the Foundation release row at the next check.

How XLM compares to other fixed-supply payment networks

Stellar belongs to the group of payment networks whose whole supply was created on day one, so nothing is mined or minted. In that group, dilution comes from how the founding organization lets its reserve out, not from the protocol. XLM and XRP are the two best-known cases. XRP's reserve sits mostly in time-locked escrow that opens on a fixed monthly calendar, and unused amounts go back into new locks, so outsiders can see the release dates in advance. Stellar's Foundation reserve has no lock and no calendar: it is spent as the Foundation decides, which makes the weekly on-chain flow the only reliable guide.

Compared with smart-contract chains that pay validators in new coins, XLM has a clear advantage in the long run: once the Foundation's 14.67B is gone, circulating supply stops growing for good, because there is no issuance to replace it. Until then, the release rate of about 2.5% of circulating supply per quarter is heavier than many proof-of-stake chains pay their validators. Stellar also has no fee burn of the kind some networks use to offset new coins; its fee pool removes only a tiny amount.

What to watch in the next 90 days

The Development accounts after the October top-up. About 707M XLM moved into them on Oct 1 and Oct 7 2026; if their weekly payouts speed up, the next 90 days will be heavier than our 884.2M projection.

The Foundation's third-quarter 2026 report. It is expected in the coming weeks and should show how much XLM the Foundation spent and sold from July to September, a second view on the release we read on-chain.

Any validator vote that touches the fee pool or issuance. Protocol upgrades came on Jul 8, Sep 16 and Oct 1 2026 without changing either; a future one could.

The upgrade reserve. The 258.9M XLM there has not moved; any claim would add to supply.

Summary

Stellar (XLM) creates no new coins, but its circulating supply grew +2.52% in the 90 days to Oct 12 2026 because the Stellar Development Foundation released a net 884.2M XLM from its reserve, against only 672.7K XLMof fees parked in the network's unspendable fee pool. We expect about the same pace in the next 90 days. The main risk is the size of what is left: the Foundation still holds 14.67B XLM with no public release calendar. The ceiling is the fixed total of about 50.00B XLM, and once the reserve is spent, supply stops growing.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of XLM, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 12 2026.