HBD in 2026: Supply Slightly Down, DHF Payouts Dominant, and HIVE Absorbing the Pressure

How is HBD doing these days?

The HIVE market cap has dropped significantly in the last months, which has reduced or stopped HBD payouts to authors. In theory, this should slow down new HBD creation and help reduce the supply.

But HBD still has other supply-expanding mechanics in place. DHF payouts and HBD interest continue to add new HBD into circulation, while conversions and the stabilizer work on the other side by removing HBD from circulation.

In 2026, the result so far is a slightly lower circulating HBD supply, with DHF payouts becoming the dominant source of new HBD and conversions taking the lead in removing HBD. The key point is that while HBD supply is going down, part of that pressure is being absorbed by HIVE.

HBD is being created and burned in multiple ways. Like many things on Hive, it has nuances. The main mechanics for expanding and contracting the supply are the conversions, but there are also the author rewards, proposal DHF payouts, interest payouts etc.

For better visibility we will be categorizing the HBD created/burned in the following manner:

• Author rewards
• Conversions
• DHF Payouts
• @hbdstabilizer
• Interest payouts

The HBD in the DHF is treated differently than the rest of the HBD. HBD in the DHF is not considered as freely available HBD on the market, so it is excluded from debt calculations and similar.

The focus here will be on freely circulating HBD, excluding the HBD in the DHF.

We will be looking at the different HBD allocations here as well.

The period that we will be looking at is 2016 – 2026, with a focus on the last year.

HBD Added in Circulation

HBD enters circulation via multiple ways, like author rewards, DHF payouts and interest to HBD held in savings. HBD is added in the DHF as a share of the inflation, but we will be looking at the HBD that only leaves the Decentralized Hive Fund, the DHF payouts.

Here is the chart.

The chart includes the following:

• Author rewards
• DHF Payouts
• Interest

As we can see the authors’ rewards have been the number one source for HBD created, but in the last years the other ways have been growing faster.

HBD in theory can be created through conversions as well, but conversions can be both positive and negative depending on market conditions. Here we will be looking at the data for conversions under the HBD removed section.

A 35M HBD was created as an author reward from the very beginning. A 12.3M as payouts from the DHF, and 5M HBD as interest. These are all cumulative numbers from 2016 to now.

We can notice that in the first years, all the HBD creation was due to author rewards, but this has changed in the last years and now the DHF is at the first spot, followed by the author rewards and then the interest rewards. In the last year, 2025, the DHF payouts have been the dominant source of inflation, with 2.5M coming out of it, and then the interest and the authors rewards each added 1.2M HBD.

HBD Removed from Circulation

Now let’s take a look at HBD removed. Here is the chart.

We can see that up to the start of the stabilizer, the main way to destroy HBD was conversions to HIVE. Since the launch of the stabilizer, it has played a major role in the decrease in the HBD supply. In the last years it has been the main method for removing HBD from circulation.
Cumulatively, the stabilizer has removed close to 25M HBD from circulation, while 16M were removed through conversions. In the very last months there seems to be again shift towards conversions.

The stabilizer is providing support for the HBD price on the internal market, buying HBD with HIVE if the HBD price is below the dollar. The stabilizer has scaled down its operations in 2024 and lowered the funds that it is receiving from the DHF but in the long run it’s still playing the major role.

Cumulative HBD Added/Removed from Circulation

When we add the two charts above, we get this.

As mentioned already the author’s rewards are the main category in the positive, and the stabilizer is dominant in the negative.
When collapsed the both sides, give approximately 10M HBD where we are now.

When we zoom in the period since the Hive fork 2020-2026 we get this:

We can see the overlapping that happened in 2021, when there was demand for HBD due to its high price on external markets like Upbit, and there was HIVE to HBD conversions, both from users and the stabilizer creating HBD. But since then, this process has been mostly working in the opposite way, removing HBD from circulation by HBD to HIVE conversions. In the process HBD is burned, but more HIVE is created.
Also, here we can clearly see that the HBD from the DHF is now dominant when it comes to creating new HBD in circulation.

HBD Supply

Finally, the HBD supply looks like this.

The HBD in the DHF is represented with light white.
We are now at 10M HBD in circulation, while there is another 23.2M HBD in the DHF, accounting for a total of 33.2M.
We can notice that in the last two years the amount of HBD in circulation has been quite stable with a small drop in the last months from 11M to 10M HBD.

When we zoom in 2025-2026 we get this:

The chart is zoomed so the movements are more visable.

The HBD supply in the DHF has been stable at around 23M.

HBD Liquid VS Savings Balance

The HBD in the savings is at 14% APR at the moment. It was recently changed after been at 20% for years. When we plot the amount of HBD in the savings against the supply we get this.

We can clearly see that since the introduction of the interest for HBD, back in 2021, out 2026 there is a constant growth in the amount of HBD in savings, while the liquid HBD supply went down. In the last months there is a drop in the overall supply and so does to the HBD in savings.

We are now at 7.5M HBD in savings from the totally 10M supply, leaving 2.5M liquid HBD.

Liquid HBD Share [%]

The chart for the liquid HBD supply share in percent, excluding the HBD in DHF and in the savings looks like this.

We can see that the liquid HBD supply share keeps going down. In the last two years. It has dropped to 25% liquid HBD and 75% staked HBD, and it is around that spot in 2024 with short fluctuations from time to time. Even with the reduction of the HBD supply in the last period, the share basically remained at the same level.

Summary for HBD Added and Removed by Category in 2026

When we sum up all the above, and check what has caused the HBD supply to expand or contract in 2026 we have this.

The DHF payouts are the number one way for HBD entering in circulation in the first four months of 2026 with 450k HBD. Next is the interest and then the authors rewards who are now very small because they stopped in February 2026.

When it comes to removing HBD from circulation conversions have overtaken the stabilizer in 2026. These are regular users who are converting HBD to HIVE. Then comes the stabilizer. When we sum the above for 2026 we get close to 1M in HBD removed from circulation.

Historically the creation/removal of HBD per category trought the years looks like this.

Note that 2026 is not over yet.

We are seing that there is now a shift in the way HBD enters circulation. In the past the majority of it was put in circulation from the authors rewards (grey), and cumulative this is still the biggest position. But in the last years the shift is more towards proposal payouts from the DHF (white) and then HBD interest (green).

The stabilizer(orange) has been the main way to remove HBD from circulation since for five years in the period of 2021 to 2025. In 2026 regular conversions are back and the mojority of the HBD removed is done by them, although the year is only a third finished.

When we collapse the bars above, we get this:

Overall, the HBD supply in 2026 is slightly down, moving from around 11M to 10M in circulation. The main source of new HBD is now DHF payouts, while author rewards have become very small after stopping in February 2026.

On the removal side, regular conversions have overtaken the stabilizer so far in 2026. This is an important shift. For years, the stabilizer was the dominant mechanism removing HBD, but now users converting HBD to HIVE are playing the bigger role.

All the best
@dalz

Live data here:
https://www.hbdstats.com/