ETH after Dencun: issuance is back, the burn is gone
ETH issued ~796K ETH this year and burned ~16.5K. Supply is back above its Merge level, and L2s paid mainnet ~$10M in 2025 vs ~$113M in 2024. The ultrasound money thesis no longer holds, but the ETH case isn't dead.
Research snapshot · 21 Oct 2026
The burn disappeared
ETH has issued ~796K ETH this year and burned ~16.5K of it. To offset issuance, gas would need to sit around 13 gwei; most of the year it has been under 1. Supply fell for about 19 months after the Merge and bottomed in April 2024 at −460K ETH. Then Dencun moved L2s to blobs, the burn basically disappeared, and since Feb 2025 supply is back above the Merge level, now +1.6M.
Less rent from L2s
L2s paid Ethereum mainnet ~$113M in 2024 and ~$10M in 2025. Cheap blobs are great for users, but for ETH holders it means far less rent coming back to L1. Glamsterdam is the next test: a 200M gas limit drops the break-even fee to ~4 gwei, but only if those blocks actually fill up.
The new bull case
Value capture is the meta: Hyperliquid buys back HYPE, Pump.fun buys back PUMP, and ETH's burn used to be its buyback. The bull case now is balance sheet demand: institutions moving stablecoins, RWAs and tokenized funds onchain need ETH as collateral, for staking, as reserve and for settlement. ETH went from ~$1,600 in July to ~$2,400 with almost zero burn, so the market seems to price something else, but valuing it is hard.
Sources & related reading
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