I don't know how accurate it is when you get down into actually calculating it (which is a really complicated topic unto itself), but the best description I've heard of inflation is that it's about the balance between the monetary supply and the available "goods" to spend it on. In crypto's case "goods" is a bit of a weird term to use, but the point is the same -- it's about the balance between money "sources" and money "sinks". If you have more money sources than money sinks, then you get inflation; the other way around, and you get deflation.