Since April 14th, the total supply of Ethereum (ETH) has surged by over 112,000 ETH, marking a notable increase according to data from ultrasound.money, a prominent Ethereum statistics dashboard. This rise in ETH supply follows the March 13th Dencun upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain, which has triggered the longest inflationary phase in newly minted Ether since the 2022 Merge.
The Dencun upgrade introduced nine Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), notably EIP-4844, which appears primarily responsible for this inflationary trend. EIP-4844 introduced the “blobs” feature, aimed at reducing fees for block data on Ethereum’s layer-2 networks by enabling temporary storage of transaction data separately. Additionally, Dencun’s proto-danksharding has enhanced data availability within Ethereum’s mainnet block space.
Concurrently, there has been a significant reduction in the overall amount of Ethereum burnt on the mainnet, while transaction costs on Ethereum’s layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism have experienced substantial decreases.
Since the Merge in 2022, Ethereum’s total supply has seen a net reduction despite recent inflationary trends. The transition to a proof-of-stake consensus method in September 2022 has introduced 1.36 billion ETH to the Ethereum network, while burning 1.5 billion ETH, resulting in a net reduction of 345,000 ETH, equivalent to over $1.1 billion at current market rates.
In recent weeks, the cryptocurrency market has faced strong bearish momentum, with Bitcoin dropping to $58,402 earlier this week, its lowest level in eight weeks. Ethereum has also been affected by selling pressure, trading at $3,373 as reported by CMC at the time of writing.
In other crypto news today, there has been a notable incident where crypto hackers targeted Metallica in the latest celebrity scam.