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

The circulating supply of XPL, the coin of the Plasma stablecoin chain, grew about +43.5% in the 90 days to Oct 29 2026, because 2.07B XPL left the locked allocations and nothing of size took coins back out. The growth comes from a fixed unlock schedule, not from staking rewards, which are not switched on yet. Another 683.33M XPL is due in the next 90 days, about +14.4%, and the monthly unlocks run until September 2028, when all 10B XPL will be free.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days from Jul 31 to Oct 29 2026, Plasma added 2.07B XPL to a circulating supply that now stands at 4.76B XPL, a net rise of +43.5%. The buy side removed close to nothing: there is no XPL buyback, and the base-fee burn came to about 15 XPL. Other trackers show +76.97% for the same 90 days because they start from the smaller supply of late July; they count the same unlocks, so the coin page carries no warning note. For the next 90 days the schedule adds 683.33M XPL, about +14.4%. The plain label: XPL is inflationary by schedule, a young token still releasing its team, investor and ecosystem allocations every month.

Sell pressure: where new XPL comes from

Protocol inflation added 0 XPL. Plasma's tokenomics set validator rewards at 5% a year, stepping down by half a point a year to 3%, but those rewards only start once outside validators and staking delegation go live. Neither has happened. On-chain, the Plasma block producer earned only the tips users paid, so no new XPL was minted in the window.

Vesting unlocks are the whole story: 2.07B XPL in 90 days. On Sep 25 2026, one year after the Plasma mainnet beta, the team and investor cliff released one third of each allocation, 1.67B XPL in a single day. The Ecosystem and Growth fund released 88.89M XPL on each of Aug 25, Sep 25 and Oct 25 2026. On Oct 25 2026 the team and investors also began their monthly releases of 138.89M XPL between them. From now on every 25th of the month brings 227.78M XPL, which is 683.33M XPL across the next 90 days.

Foundation and unscheduled unlocks add 0 XPL. Every locked XPL sits on the published monthly schedule above, so nothing waits outside it. Coins the team, investors or the Foundation move after their release date are already counted as circulating, so those moves add no new supply. Long-term locked or bankruptcy supply is 0 XPL: no court-held or estate-held XPL exists.

Buy pressure: where new XPL goes

Programmatic buyback removed 0 XPL. Plasma has not announced an XPL buyback, and no contract or treasury buys XPL back from the market.

The protocol fee burn removed about 15 XPL, which rounds to zero. Plasma follows the EIP-1559 design, so the base fee of every transaction is destroyed, but that base fee usually sits at 8 wei, a tiny fraction of one XPL, and plain USDT transfers on Plasma cost users nothing at all. Across all 7.76M blocks in the window, most of the burn came from a few busy minutes on Oct 1 2026. About 22K XPL that users sent to dead addresses is a separate, voluntary loss and is not part of this burn.

Foundation buying is 0 XPL: the Foundation pays XPL out as Plasma One card cashback and growth rewards and does not buy it back. New long-term locks are 0 XPL too. Since Sep 26 2026, Plasma One card users can lock XPL for 12 months to reach a higher card tier, but those coins still count as circulating, so the lock does not shrink the count.

Foundation and overhang

5.24B XPL is still locked, more than the 4.76B XPL now circulating. The Ecosystem and Growth fund holds 2.04B XPL of it, and the team and the investors hold about 1.6B XPL each. None of it is unscheduled: it all leaves on the monthly path to September 2028.

The allocations sit in plain wallets with a custodian, not in a lock contract. The five largest known allocation wallets held 2.18B, 1.04B, 556M, 191M and 122M XPL on Oct 29 2026, and the team moved 300M XPL to a new wallet on the cliff day. We check these wallets at every rebuild. If coins leave them faster than the schedule allows, that extra outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh.

How XPL compares to other stablecoin-focused Layer 1 chains

Plasma is built to move stablecoins, and its users mostly pay no fee in XPL at all. That design is the main reason XPL has almost no burn. Tron, the largest chain for USDT, works the other way: every transfer consumes resources that are paid for by burning TRX or by staking it, so heavy stablecoin traffic on Tron removes TRX. Ethereum also burns the base fee of every transaction. On Plasma, the stablecoin traffic grows, but the XPL burn does not grow with it.

On the sell side, XPL looks like other chains launched with large team and investor allocations: a one-year cliff, then two years of monthly releases. That shape makes the second and third years after launch the heaviest for new supply. Many older proof-of-stake chains get most of their new supply from staking rewards instead. XPL has not started those rewards yet, so when delegation goes live, a 5% yearly reward would come on top of the monthly unlocks.

XPL has no buyback and no lock that removes coins from circulation. Its total stays at the 10B XPL minted at launch only until staking rewards start; after that there is no hard cap. Its supply path is set almost entirely by the published unlock calendar.

What to watch in the next 90 days

On Nov 25 2026, 227.78M XPL unlocks: 88.89M for the ecosystem fund and 138.89M for the team and investors.

On Dec 25 2026 and Jan 25 2027, the same 227.78M XPL unlocks again each time, bringing the 90-day total to 683.33M XPL.

The start of staking delegation, which has no date yet. Plasma published its Torch design for handing over between validator sets on Oct 1 2026; when outside validators and delegation go live, the 5% yearly reward begins and Sell #1 stops being zero.

The five large allocation wallets. If they send out more than the schedule releases, the extra moves into the sell ledger at the next refresh.

Summary

XPL, the coin of the Plasma stablecoin chain, grew its circulating supply by +43.5% in the 90 days to Oct 29 2026, almost all of it from the Sep 25 2026 team and investor cliff and the monthly ecosystem releases. Plasma has no buyback, and its fee burn removed only about 15 XPL, because most stablecoin transfers on Plasma cost nothing. The next 90 days add another 683.33M XPL, about +14.4%, and the monthly unlocks of 227.78M XPL continue until September 2028. The main risk beyond the calendar is the start of staking rewards, which would add new XPL on top of the unlocks.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of XPL, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 28 2026.