The Ethereum network emits additional Ether into the network with each new block produced. The creation of new Ether is called ‘minting’. A block is produced roughly every fifteen seconds, so new Ether is being minted all the time. Many cryptocurrencies have what is called an ‘emission curve’ which defines the emission rate over time. Most commonly, the amount of new currency is automatically reduced at various milestones. Bitcoin is famous for its ‘halving’, which reduces the block reward in half.
Ethereum has no automatic emission model, nor does it have a maximum emission after which no Ether can be emitted. It is infinitely inflationary, in that the network will continue to emit Ether as long as people keep participating in the network (via mining or staking). However, amount that can be produced per year has a cap. If this cap is reached every year, the amount of inflation increase will become smaller year over year because the cap is a smaller percentage of the total supply, even if no burning occurred.
The actual emission per block is governed by the updates to the network and is controlled by the Ethereum foundation. For instance, the initial block emission was 5 ETH, which was subsequently reduced to 3 ETH, and at the time of this writing is around 2 ETH. Block rewards are paid to the miners or pools, where the reward would be divided between the participating miners according to their level of participation.
