Ethereum's (ETH) Total Supply Reaches Highest Level Since September 2022! Here are the Details

The total supply of Ethereum (ETH) has reached unprecedented levels since the significant Merge upgrade in September 2022.

Ethereum Supply Rises to Pre-Merge Levels, Analysts Point to the London Upgrade as a Key Factor

According to the data obtained from Ultrasound.money, Ethereum’s current supply has reached 120,521,523 ETH, exceeding the post-merge low levels by approximately 383 ETH.

This marks the highest supply since January 2023 and effectively reverses the deflationary trend following Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

The increase in ETH supply is largely attributed to the Dencun upgrade implemented in March 2024. Justin Bram, co-founder and CEO of Astaria, highlighted the development, sparking widespread debate within the crypto community.

The Impact of Dencun on ETH Inflation

According to Jaehyun Ha, an analyst at Presto Research, the Dencun update fundamentally changed Ethereum’s deflationary supply dynamics, which is a significant driver of the fee burning mechanism.

Ha, “With the Dencun update, Ethereum has provided support for blob operations designed to efficiently handle large data payloads, especially for Layer 2 (L2) networks,” he said. “These operations use a separate fee unit called ‘blob gas’ unlike standard gas fees.”

Before London, a significant portion of transaction fees was burned to reduce the ETH supply. However, the transition to blob gas has led to a decrease in the proportion of fees burned due to a significant amount of transaction activity moving to blob transactions. This reduced burning effect has contributed to ETH inflation even if network activity remains strong.