The supply of a coin is quite an important thing. Also, its inflation. A very common question about a project is what it is supply?

As many things around here the HIVE supply is a bit special, and doesn’t have a simple answer 😊.
Let’s take a look!

If you take a look at the other coins, let’s say Bitcoin, the supply and the inflation over time is pretty simple. There are a certain amount of tokens circulation, inflation level set, and the supply keeps increasing over time. Usually in time the inflation drops.

However, as many things on Hive this is not that simple.

The reason?

The main reason would be the dual token economy with HIVE and HBD, and the conversions between this two. HIVE has its stablecoin, that in a sense its maybe before the time, since we are now seeing a lot of stablecoin popping out and the defi movement is partially evolving around them.

HIVE Created:

• Author rewards, HP and HIVE
• Curation rewards HP
• Witness rewards HP
• Staking rewards HP
• HBD to HIVE Conversions

HIVE Removed:

• HIVE to HBD conversions
• HIVE ninja mine conversions in the DHF
• Instant HIVE to HBD conversions from HIVE transfers to DHF
• HIVE transfers to null
• New accounts creation fee

Note: I want to emphasis that the data bellow is kind of revers engineering the supply. I have taken the current numbers for the supply and extracted all the way back. It is most likely not a 100% accurate, but it shows the overall picture pretty close. Also, I have not taken into account the new accounts creation fee.

Let’s dig into this!

HIVE Authors rewards

Here is the chart for the all-time HIVE authors rewards.

Authors receive rewards on Hive in three currencies. Hive Power, HBD or liquid HIVE. The chart above represents the authors rewards in Hive Power and HIVE. HBD rewards are not included. The HBD supply will be analyzed separately.

Almost 45M Hive Power and HIVE rewarded to authors since inceptions. The period for the previous version of Hive is also included. If HBD rewards are included this number will be almost double. But users don’t convert HBD to HIVE instantly when they get the rewards, so this math is a bit of.

We can notice a flattening in the authors rewards towards the end of the chart, mainly because of the switch from 75/25 to 50/50 split in authors/curators share.

Curation rewards

The chart for the curation rewards looks like this.

Luckily curation rewards are earned only in one currency, Hive Power, so things are a bit simpler here. I have kept the axis scale for the chart on a same level as for the authors rewards for better comparison. A total of 33.5M issued to curators.

Witness rewards

Currently 10% of the inflation goes to witness.

The witnesses have received a total of 19.3M HIVE.

Staking rewards

Hive Power holders receive staking rewards for holding HP. Their HP is increased each day by a very tiny amount. The current APY for HP staking rewards is around 3.4%.

A total of 20M to staking rewards and HP holders. The staking rewards are around 10k HIVE per day. Now the interesting thing is that they are generated from the HIVE per VEST ration and not with a hard transaction so to speak.

HIVE from HBD Conversions

HIVE can be generated by HBD conversions as well. When HBD is put in conversion its being destroyed in a period of 3 days and the average price is taken from that period when HIVE is printed.

A lot of HIVE has been generated trough conversions. Authors that receive their rewards in HBD are converting a lot of it. Especially in the last period.

A total of 72.8M HIVE has been put in circulation from HBD conversions. If we compare this with the total author rewards of 45M, we can see that more HIVE has been generated in this way. This is mostly because of the previous cycle, bull and bear, when HBD was added and then converted at low price for a lot of HIVE.

The low price of HIVE is basically generating more inflation trough HBD conversion.

HIVE Virtual Supply From HBD

If we want to get the whole picture for the supply we need to include the HBD as well. To do this we need to convert the HBD to HIVE and added as virtual supply.

Here is the chart.

The virtual supply of HIVE from HBD is fluctuating a lot. This is mostly because of the HIVE price. When the HIVE price is low, the virtual supply increases and the opposite. The top for the virtual supply is somewhere between 30M to 40M HIVE.

HIVE Removed From Circulation

HIVE is being removed in all the ways that was mentioned above, but mostly from conversions.

We can see the huge spike in HIVE removed from circulation in the last month or two.
There is now a total of 48M that has been removed from circulation. Most of it is because of the HIVE to HBD conversions in the last months.

Historical HIVE Supply

If we combine all the supply generated from the rewards and the conversions above, we get this.

As mentioned at the begging the chart is generated from the current supply and then extracting the rewards back to the starting supply.

We can notice that the HIVE supply has grown quite a lot in the last years. When accounted for the conversions the inflation rate was closing to 15% per year, not the 8% to 9% as designed. This resulted in doubling the HIVE supply in less than five years, reaching the peak in January 2021 with more than 420M virtual HIVE supply, from the starting around 210M.

Since the option for reverse conversions HIVE to HBD, the HIVE supply has dropped a lot, but also the virtual supply that accounts for the HBD as well.

In 2021 HIVE is deflationary!

This goes for the both parameters, HIVE and the virtual HIVE supply. At the start of the 2021 the HIVE supply was around 380M, and the virtual supply at 420M. Now the HIVE supply is at 356M, and the virtual HIVE supply at 394M. The HIVE supply has dropped for almost 10%, while the virtual supply for around 6%.

At the end one clean chart for the HIVE supply 😊.

All the best
@dalz