Today we break down some of the most important stats that just don’t get talked about enough.
Circulating Supply: Nov 2021 vs. July 2025 (Today)
The table below compares each token’s circulating supply at the peak of the last bull run (November 2021) versus the current supply (as of July 24, 2025). It also shows the net change in supply (new tokens minted or tokens burned) and the change as a percentage of the current supply, I went the old Ian Balina style spreadsheet here for good effect:
Sources: Historical supplies (Nov 2021) are from CoinMarketCap snapshots (except ETC, which are estimated from earlier data). Current supplies are from CoinMarketCap or other reliable trackers as of July 24, 2025.
Inflation/Deflation Comparison (Nov 2021 → July 2025)
High Inflation:
Avalanche (AVAX) expanded its circulating supply by roughly 198 million tokens (47% of current supply). Thats pretty huge and definitely makes you think about ATH possibilities etc, useage had to massively increase from last cycle.
Polkadot (DOT) also inflated significantly, minting 612 million new DOT (38% of current supply). Biggest under-performer in the blue-chip stack for me, over the last couple of years.
Chainlink (LINK) grew by 211 million tokens (31% of current supply) in the same timeframe. These increases reflect ongoing network reward emissions or token release schedules for those projects. Still makes for a steeper uphill climb come game time. This is why in my predictions at the beginning of the year I had some of these capped lower by Dec 31.
Moderate Inflation:
XRP’s circulating supply grew from 47.16 billion to 59.18 billion, an increase of 12.02 billion XRP (20.3% of current supply). This is largely due to scheduled escrow releases by Ripple, they have enough bullish news and adoption to soak that up as far as I can tell.
Ethereum Classic (ETC) supply rose an estimated 32.3 million (about 21.1% of current) consistent with its proof-of-work mining issuance. Not following deeply enough but was requested to include it.
Dogecoin (DOGE), which has a steady block reward, added about 17.92 billion new DOGE (11.9% of current supply) an annual inflation around 5% for DOGE, which is about par for course as it takes a crack at $1 this cycle.
Low Inflation:
Bitcoin (BTC) minted only about 1.0 million BTC since Nov 2021 (5.0% of current supply). This reflects Bitcoin’s programmed halving (its block reward dropped in May 2024), resulting in slowing supply growth. King of the hill for so many reasons.
Ethereum (ETH) increased by only 2.18 million ETH (1.8% of current supply). Ethereum’s low net inflation is due to the introduction of EIP-1559 fee burns in August 2021 and the Merge (transition to proof-of-stake in Sept 2022), which drastically reduced ETH issuance, in fact, Ethereum’s supply growth has almost flattened in recent years. No wonder people are so bullish on this.
Deflationary: BNB is the outlier with negative supply growth. The circulating supply of BNB decreased from 166.80 million to 139.28 million (a drop of 27.5 million BNB, or –19.8% of current supply). This is due to BNB’s quarterly coin burn program (Binance destroys BNB to reduce supply), making BNB deflationary over time. What a set up for Binance, they control the exchange volumes, dictate massive market moves and can now print in the bull.
Most of these major tokens experienced supply inflation since November 2021, but at vastly different rates. AVAX, DOT, and LINK had the highest relative increase in circulating supply (indicating significant inflation), XRP, ETC, and DOGE saw moderate supply growth, BTC and ETH had very low supply increases (BTC’s fixed issuance and ETH’s post-Merge burn almost offsetting new issuance), and BNB actually had a substantial supply decrease due to token burns. This comparison highlights how inflationary pressure varies greatly across crypto projects, which can be an important factor in their long-term token economics and price dynamics.
How Many New Tokens Did Your Fav Blue Chip Mint Since the Last Alt Season? was originally published in The Capital on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.