Ethereum burns ETH whenever users pay base fees to use the network. But where is that burn coming from? Are decentralized exchanges still doing the heavy lifting, or have stablecoins and other applications taken the lead?
Here we will be looking at the historical trends of burning Ethereum but also look at the applications behind the burn. The total tells us how much ETH has been removed, while the rankings show which contracts are contributing to that number.
Here we will be looking at:
- Daily ETH burned
- Recent burn trend
- Cumulative ETH burned
- Fees
- Top contributors
- historical leaders
The data is from ultrasound.money and etherscan. Recent figures cover rolling 30-day and 7-day periods ending around that time.
ETH Burned Per Day
First, a look at the total ETH removed since the London upgrade in August 2021 till now.
We can notice that at the beginning the amount of ETH burned was much bigger than in the last years. Back in 2021 there was a period of time where on average there was around 10k ETH burned per day. In the last period in 2026 this number is close to 100 or bellow that. The numbers are barely visible on the chart.
The highest daily burn reached 71,718 ETH on May 1, 2022. By comparison, October 5, 2026 recorded 100 ETH. The chart starts with the first full day after London and excludes blob fees.
When we zoom in 2026 we get this:
This is for 2026 only and the y axis has been zoomed in from 80k on the previous chart to 800 here or a 100x zoom in.
We can notice here that there are few spikes in the amount of daily burns of ETH, with the maximum in February 2026 closing on 600. There is another one in May with above 500 and smaller increase in the last period with around 300 ETH burned per day. In most of the other days the numbers are well bellow 100. This is obviously far bellow the record highs of 2021.
Cumulative ETH Burned
When we plot the daily burns on a cumulative scale, we have this:
Around 4.64 million ETH has been burned. Of this, 2.62 million was burned before the Merge and 2.02 million afterwards.
We can notice the increase in the fist years after the burn option was activated, while in the last few years the numbers are smaller.
Note that burning does not automatically mean supply is falling, new ETH continues to be issued, and net supply depends on the balance between the two.
ETH Burned Vs Inflation
Here is the daily amount of new ETH issued compared with the ETH burned, from August 2021 through October 2026.
This chart is a good marker are the burns compesating for the new ETH thart is issued. As we can see in the past there was a time this was the case, especialy after swich to Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022 and the overall reduction in new ETH issuance from around 13k to 2k at the time per day. In the period of 2022 to 2023 on many occasions ETH was deflationary.
But in the last years, the regular inflation continued and the burns dropped so the ETH supply cotinue to grow although with the merge the inflation is signicanlty reduced and is less than 1%, or around 1M ETH per year, while the curent ETH supply is at 122M.
Ethereum Base Fees
Here is the daily average execution base fee from the London upgrade in August 2021 through October 5, 2026.
Daily base fees were much higher in 2021 and early 2022 than in the last years. The highest daily average reached 728.0 Gwei on May 1, 2022. At the October 5, 2026 snapshot, the latest daily reading was 0.24 Gwei. This helps explain why the burn can change quickly. Execution burn depends on both the gas consumed and the base fee paid for that gas. A busy spell at higher fees can contribute much more than a similar amount of activity when fees are cheap. This chart excludes validator tips.
Top ETH Burn Contributors in the Last 30 Days
Who did the burning? Where did the burns come from? Here is the chart for the last 30 days.
For the last 30 days, operations including Tether USDT contributed the most in burning Ethereum. Close to 173 ETH in fees was burnt for USDT transfers. On the second spot is an unlabelled contract that burned 114 Ethereum followed by regular ETH transfers. USDC, another stbalecoin comes on the fourt spot.
We can notice that in the top four, two are connected to the stablecoins operations, that shows the importance of the integration of stablecoins and their usage onchain. Several large contracts remain unnamed in the source. Keeping their addresses visible gives a more complete picture than showing only familiar brands.
Historical Burn Leaders
The cumulative ranking since the London update in 2021 looks quite different from the recent one.
OpenSea is on the top here. The NFT craze obviously did leave a mark on Ethereum. Even though in the last years their contribution has been very small, the burns from the past keep OpenSea on the top. Minting NFTs was expensive. On the second spot is another well know applications Uniswap with its V2 version. Note that if all the Uniswap versions are accounted as one, Unsiwap will be the number one app burning fees on Ethereum. USDT comes on the third spot here, so even in historical context the USDT contribution is big. USDC also in the top 10, with MetaMask as well.
All the best @dalz
