Ether Turns Net Deflationary Post-Merge

Ether is finally ultra-sound money.

The largest smart contract platform by market capitalization has hit the much-anticipated milestone of zero net issuance, 54 days after it the network transitioned to proof-of-stake consensus.

Ether Supply since the Merge. Source: ultrasound.money

The Merge reduced Ether issuance by roughly 90% by eliminating block rewards to miners in favor of staking rewards for validators who stake ETH. The move has reduced the blockchain’s energy consumption by 99%.

In an inflationary world, the term ‘sound money’ was coined as a reference to Bitcoin, with its capped supply.

With Ether’s potential to become a deflationary asset — meaning that its total supply decreases over time — after a fee-burning mechanism was introduced with the EIP-1559 upgrade, the Ethereum community took the meme one step further, and ‘ultra sound money’ was born.

Nearly 3,000 ETH, worth $4M, was burned today alone as on-chain activity spiked as a result of market volatility. Ether is down 15% in the past 24 hours as insolvency fears surrounding crypto hedge fund Alameda Research and the FTX crypto exchange have spooked investors.

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The Defiant