CashboardGlossary · Onchain
What is the ETH burn?
The ETH burn is the base fee Ethereum destroys on every transaction since EIP-1559. When it outpaces new issuance, the supply of ETH shrinks.
How does the ETH burn work?
Since the London upgrade on August 5, 2021, every Ethereum transaction pays a base fee that the protocol destroys instead of paying it to anyone. Of the fee, only the priority tip reaches the validator. Blob fees are burned the same way. By ultrasound.money's count, about 4.6 million ETH had been burned by September 2026.
New ETH comes from the other side. Validators earn it as issuance, and total issuance grows with the square root of all staked ETH, so more stake means more new ETH but less for each validator. Supply follows whichever side is bigger. The ultrasound money meme is the bet that the burn wins.
For stretches after the Merge in September 2022 it did, and supply fell. Then Dencun moved rollup data into cheap blobs in March 2024, mainnet fees dropped and the burn shrank with them. By ultrasound.money's figures, ETH supply bottomed near 120.06 million on April 5, 2024 and grew about 0.7 percent across 2025.
Say issuance runs at 1,000,000 ETH a year and the burn at 200,000. The burn offsets 20 percent of issuance, and on a 121 million supply the net 800,000 ETH works out to about 0.66 percent a year. The burn would have to pass 1,000,000 before supply shrank at all.
Also called: EIP-1559 burn, base fee burn, burned ETH, ETH fee burn.
Where does the ETH burn show up in Cashboard?
The Ethereum pulse shows ETH burned over the last hour and over a window you pick (24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or since the Merge) from ultrasound.money, plus a live figure it works out from public RPC for the last 20 blocks. Its supply tile sets the yearly burn against yearly issuance at the pace of that same window, 7 days by default, says what share of issuance the burn offsets and labels supply inflationary or deflationary. Both tiles stay in the Compact layout.
Frequently asked questions
Is ETH deflationary?
Only while the burn beats issuance, and since April 2024 that has been rare. Through September 2026, ultrasound.money's daily figures show supply falling on only 16 of roughly 900 days and never across a 30-day stretch, and supply grew about 0.7 percent in 2025. The Ethereum pulse shows the current 7-day rate and labels it inflationary or deflationary.
Where does burned ETH go?
Nowhere. The protocol deducts the base fee and credits it to no one, so it leaves the supply for good. Only the priority tip is paid to the validator that proposed the block.
Where can you read more about ETH burn?
Related terms
Last reviewed . Market data in Cashboard comes from the providers named on each widget and may be delayed. Nothing here is financial advice.