The amount of Ethereum (ETH) being issued has fallen 95% since the cryptocurrency’s network upgrade was completed on September 15.
The amount of new Ethereum being issued has dropped from 3.79% to 0.20% since “the Merge” switched the digital token’s protocol to a more energy efficient proof-of-stake model.
The shift from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to the new proof-of-stake protocol is expected to cut Ethereum’s energy consumption by 99.95%.
However, Ethereum’s daily token issuance has also plummeted since the change. Daily issuance refers to the total amount of new tokens created to reward crypto miners or validators.
Following the merge, the network has created 4,581.26 new Ethereum, a 95% reduction compared to the previous proof-of-work protocol.
Ethereum will be viewed as deflationary if the number of tokens issued each day is less than the amount that are regularly destroyed.
So far, Ethereum continues to produce more tokens than are being destroyed. However, concerns are growing about the number of new tokens being created.
Post-merge, Ethereum’s daily issuance has declined to 772 tokens a day from 12,500 before the upgrade.
The diminishing supply is also hurting Ethereum’s price, which has dropped 22% since the Merge and is now down 65% on the year at $1,300.00 U.S.
