Is Monero's tail emission inflationary or deflationary?

Monero’s tail emission is inflationary in supply terms: it keeps adding new XMR, so the total number of coins grows. But its percentage inflation rate falls over time, because the same amount of new XMR is added to an increasingly large supply. That does not make Monero deflationary, and it does not tell you whether its price will rise or fall.

A fixed addition, not a fixed percentage

Tail emission began around June 2022, after Monero’s main emission had produced roughly 18.13 million XMR. It provides an ongoing base mining reward of 0.6 XMR per block, with a new block arriving about every two minutes.

At that target pace, this means approximately:

• 0.3 XMR per minute
• 432 XMR per day
• 157,680 XMR per 365-day year

These are target-based estimates, not an exact calendar schedule. Actual block timing varies.

The important distinction is that Monero adds a roughly fixed number of coins, rather than a fixed percentage of the existing supply. There is no maximum supply under these rules.

Why the inflation rate keeps shrinking

You can estimate annual supply inflation with this calculation:

New XMR issued during a year ÷ XMR supply at the start of that year × 100

For a simple, hypothetical example:

• With a supply of 20 million XMR, adding 157,680 XMR would mean about 0.79% annual inflation.
• With a supply of 30 million XMR, that same addition would mean about 0.53% annual inflation.

Those supply figures are examples, not claims about today’s supply. For a current estimate, check a live Monero explorer, which displays information recorded on the network.

This falling percentage is sometimes called disinflation: inflation continues, but at a lower rate. Monero’s percentage supply growth approaches zero over the long run without actually reaching zero or becoming negative.

Supply inflation is not price inflation

The word “inflation” can get confusing because it describes different things.

Here, supply inflation means there are more XMR in existence. Price inflation usually means goods and services become more expensive, reducing a currency’s purchasing power.

One does not automatically determine the other. Monero’s purchasing power depends on demand as well as supply. Its market price could rise despite new issuance, or fall while its percentage issuance rate declines.

If you hold the same number of XMR while supply grows, your share of the total supply becomes slightly smaller. That is dilution. It does not necessarily mean the market value of your holdings falls by that same percentage.

Lost coins do not guarantee deflation

You may hear that lost wallets make Monero effectively deflationary. Losing access to a wallet can remove coins from practical use, but it does not erase them from the issued supply.

There is also no reliable way to count every permanently lost XMR. Coins that have not moved might simply belong to someone saving them.

Tail emission exists to keep providing miners with a base reward for securing the network, rather than relying entirely on transaction fees. That security benefit comes with continuing, gradually smaller percentage dilution.

The bottom line

Monero is permanently inflationary in coin supply, with a declining percentage inflation rate. Calling it deflationary confuses slower supply growth with a shrinking supply—or assumes something about future prices or lost coins that you cannot know.