# Altcoins have been getting absolutely crushed for much of 2019

However, bitcoin has been performing very well.

Why is that?

Well, it has been happening for several reasons mostly pertaining to demand, but there are also some issues on the supply side as well.

Bitcoin currently has an inflation rate of less than 4% per year and that is going drop to under 2% after this next block reward halving.

By comparison, check out some of the altcoin inflation numbers (pay Special attention to the Zcash and XRP numbers):

https://i.postimg.cc/Jz8xv48S/EEXklxn-Ww-AAVZ12.png

https://i.postimg.cc/hGjLRX5Z/EEXklxu-Wk-AU60aw.png

(Source: https://twitter.com/krugermacro/status/1172594623098871809)
 
Zcash and XRP are both over 27% inflation rates annually.

Pretty tough to compete with bitcoin when you are inflating by 7x as much, soon to be 14x as much annually!

# Where does steem stand?

Steem is considered to have a fairly high inflation rate as well, though not nearly on the level of Zcash or XRP.

Here is a table of Steem's inflation rate:

**Year**	**Supply**    **Inflation**	**New Supply**
2016	250,000,000	**9.50%**	23,750,000
2017	273,750,000	**9.08%**	24,854,398
2018	298,604,398	**8.66%**	25,854,554
2019	324,458,952	**8.24%**	26,727,942
2020	351,186,894 	       7.82%	27,452,027
2021	378,638,921 	7.40%	28,004,740
2022	406,643,661	6.98%	28,364,989
2023	435,008,650	6.55%	28,513,181
2024	463,521,832 	6.13%	28,431,762
2025	491,953,593 	5.71%	28,105,742
2026	520,059,335	5.29%	27,523,204
2027	547,582,539	4.87%	26,675,768
2028	574,258,308	4.45%	25,558,997
2029	599,817,304 	4.03%	24,172,733
2030	623,990,038	3.61%	22,521,348
2031	646,511,386  	3.19%	20,613,886
2032	667,125,272 	2.77%	18,464,106
2033	685,589,378	2.35%	16,090,399
2034	701,679,777 	1.93%	13,515,587
2035	715,195,364  	1.51%	10,766,608
2036	725,961,973 	1.08%	7,874,074
2037	733,836,047	**0.95%**	6,971,442

# Not bad, and getting better!

The current inflation rate is around 8% per year for steem, and that drops by roughly .5% every year until it stops at .95% in 2037 and stays at that level forever.

Eventually steem may be considered a "low inflation coin", but we are not at those levels yet and won't be for some time.

The good news is that much of the inflation is locked up in SP, so the amount of new steem actually hitting the exchanges is rather low.

Looking forward to the days when steem will be considered a low inflation coin!

Stay informed my friends.