Report: Nearly $2.5 Billion Paid Annually to Ethereum Miners, ETH Issuance Woes Continue

According to a report on TrustNodes, mining revenue accounts for about 8.3 percent of Ethereum's market cap - which stands at $30 billion at the time of writing.

In a period of 24 hours, as per data collated for Aug. 11, Ethereum network miners received over $6.6 million in incentives, including block base rewards, mining fees, and "Uncles" rewards.

Spread over 365 days, the numbers add up to over $2.36 billion; possibly even larger when ETH prices increase.

Prior to Casper, Ethereum did not expect a supply cap larger than 100 million ether.

To mitigate the uncertainty surrounding Ether's max supply, four distinct proposals have been proposed by different thought schools: Increasing block rewards to 5 ETH, remaining stable at current block reward of 3 ETH, reducing to 2 ETH, and finally, reducing the reward to just 1 ETH. Of these proposals, a 1 ETH block reward resonated most with the Ethereum community, with 65,000 ETH voting in favor of reducing block incentives to a low value.

Only $7 million worth of ETH voted in favor of the 2 ETH block reward proposal, rendering an inflation rate of 4 percent.

A tiny 2.1 ETH was voted with the network continuing its worrying inflation rates and removing Casper updates from its plans completely.

Some miners complain low rewards may mean lesser earnings for them by reducing the max supply for ether and officially capping its value, an increase in fiat price can be expected for the low amount of ETH awarded.

ETH transactions were recorded at $365 million per day against the pioneer cryptocurrency's $4 billion.

With the aforementioned in context, a block reward of 2 ETH likely appears to keep inflation in check, provide sufficient incentives, and balance the many needs of the Ethereum platform.