Bitcoin Forum

Import your wallet.dat, find it in your blockchain export section.

It is acutely possible.

If your mining and discover a block you can give a null address and *poof* the coins are gone.

I am not sure if that has been fixed yet (It is not a great priority, who would mine coins into oblivion after all).

Neil

Something like that (I am eating lunch one handed so I wont go into a long explication, but it is quite complex if someone else wants to dig it up).


As far as I know once they are on the blockchain they are there for good (baring new exploits).

Neil

ignoring the fact that people will reply saying that quantum computers 'may' find the privkey of a null address.....

the ability to put funds into a null address now, whether mined or previously hoarded is possible today. much like the guy that never kept a copy of his privkey and his hard drive is now sitting in a landfill... is another option to lose bitcoins from circulation

emphasis on the words lose from circulation. rather than destroyed

The IRS would love for that to happen and is trying to do that. They wish to keep putting limitations on it to stomp it out but it wont happen.

I don't think it's possible to destroy them. It's like asking someone if it's possible to destroy the Internet, or thoughts.

FUD spreader get under your bridge.

the IRS recently classified it as a valid store or value!! they declared it as worthy of people to invest in, make profit to then cash out and give them taxes.

Miners (or mining pools) receive as their block reward, the sum of the block subsidy (currently 25 BTC) AND the total transaction fees paid by all transactions included in the block.

They do this by creating a special transaction that has no inputs, and assigns outputs that do not exceed this sum to any addresses (or scripts) that they like.

Notice, that I said they assign outputs that do not exceed this sum.

In other words, the protocol is perfectly happy to let a miner assign LESS than the reward that they are due in this transaction.

This has happened in the past accidentally.  It is not likely to happen intentionally, but that doesn't mean it can't.

If they assign between 0.00000001 BTC and 25 BTC less than they are due, then you could just say they are accepting the fees, and reducing the number of new bitcoins created.

If the reward they assign in the transaction falls short of what they are due by more than 25 BTC, then clearly, some of the fees paid have vanished from existence.

The fees were paid by transactions, but they don't show up in any outputs, and no longer exist to be spent or to find in the list of unspent transaction outputs (UTXO).

Also note that transactions can be created that don't pay to an address, but rather pay to a script.  In particular, you can use OP_RETURN to create an output that can never be spent.  This script OP code is used specifically to mark an output as "invalid".  As such, it can immediately be removed from the UTXO, and can be considered "destroyed".

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script

It's possible for you to physically lose them, but it can't be DESTROYED completely.

It's a well known fact that 1GG3CLYd36tmU2X73rmHYzsTtaJcNwMcCC is the default address for destroying Bitcoins

*cough*

That is the way I understand it. Even if you lose your private keys the coins will always be in the block chain.

I see what you did there
No No its 1EByjy9e4FeGZuTV4Rx5hbf4PnFt7jGh8M

*Cough*

Hmm blockchains not address searching think that was not exodus :)

First you have to describe what you mean when you say "destroy bitcoins".

Since bitcoins don't actually exist, there isn't anything there to destroy.

We can, however, permanently reduce the sum of the unspent transaction outputs.  That's about as close as you can get to the "destruction" of something that was never "created" in the first place.

From what I understand bitcoins cant be destroyed but the keys can be lost

Destroying bitcoins (losing keys / forgetting passwords) = giving away your coins to every other bitcoin holder in the exact proportion of their holdings.

So for all you morons out there in the world, let me take this moment to preemptively thank you.

Out of curiosity, is there any web service which keeps tabs on how many coins are proved to be destroyed? Compared to the number of "de facto" unspendable coins, it must be insignificant, but it's still something to look at.

Not really. The blockchain still records that it resides at such and such address.

I'm not sure there is a way to actually destroy a bitcoin in terms of its recordability on the blockchain.

I don't know of any and it is very small %.  Most are probably due to mistakes they just happen to be mistakes where we can definitively say the output can't be spent.  The "normal" usage of OP RETURN is to encode up to 40 bytes of data in an output with zero value so the output is unspendable but not coins are lost.  As Danny pointed out it could be used to provably destroy coins (and there are a number of other methods) but I don't believe it has been used intentionally that way for anything other than a few tests.

I wonder if there is a way to return confirmed unspendable coins to circulation. Could they be added to block rewards to do it fairly? I am not proposing we try but my intellectual curiosity gets piqued about things like this.
 

Not without making hard fork changes to the protocol that would require the consensus of ALL users.

There is ONLY one way to truly destroy bitcoin.

Other methods, e.g. losing private key, sending to 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE, sending to OP_RETURN, just make the coins unspendable. The record of the bitcoin is still on the blockchain.

To truly destroy bitcoin, a miner has to deliberately underpay himself. This happend in block 124724 ( http://blockexplorer.com/block/0000000000004c78956f8643262f3622acf22486b120421f893c0553702ba7b5 )

With this, 0.01000001 bitcoin was destroyed

The most destroyed ever coins were here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50232.0

Gosh.... what a bizarre court case it'd be if Gox accidentally destroyed all the coins instead of "losing" them, recently.

"We're declaring bankruptcy after accidentally setting fire to $1,600,000." "How did this happen?" "Wrong opcode. Our giant USD warehouse thought I wanted it to set fire to itself."

If you were to send a TX with an invalid output then the BTC will be destroyed assuming the TX gets confirmed. Eligius is the only pool that I know about that would possibly confirm nonstandard TXs.

I have recently learned that any output with OP_RETURN is excluded from the fee/balance calculations and thus the value of any OP_RETURN output is simply transferred to the miners as a fee.

Example:
https://blockchain.info/tx/139c004f477101c468767983536caaeef568613fab9c2ed9237521f5ff530afd

So this is not one way to destroy bitcoins although there are plenty of others as you pointed out.

On edit:  This is incorrect.  The value assigned to the OP_RETURN output remains unspendable.

a key is called a key for a reason. the key itself is not the actual bitcoin, but it's what gives you access to the it.

Send them to Mark, he will destroy them once and for good.

Any problem with your calculator ??? ??? ???

1 (1FC....) = 0.998 (1FC...) + 0.001 (destroyed) + 0.001 (fee)

No, that's not true.

Oops looks like I was misinformed ... and failed basic math.

It's like saying that if you put 100$ on a remote planet where is almost impossible to go the 100$ are destroyed

Delete your private key and it will be all gone  ;)

or give it to me  ;D

Bitcoin is just an idea. It can't be destroy.

If Bitcoin is destroyed for some strange reasons, another cryptocurrency will emerge and take its place.

Are you trolling? We are talking bitcoin the currency, not Bitcoin the protocol

Just send all your bitcoins to an address that hasn't been created yet and boom they are technically impossible to recover.

I think you've already got an answer so I'll just join the throng not listening to your question and say:

Wasn't there a guy a year or two back saying he hated bitcoin so much, that he mined a ton at his place of work, just so he could through away the key.
To which everyone said "Do a flip!"

Don't know if anybody else mentioned it already, but if you transfer them to 1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr, they are lost forever.
This address already has 2000+ BTC in it which is lost forever.

bitcoins do not exist so they cannot be destroyed.

the blockchain which exists on every computer that runs bitcoin software, is called that because its is a chain of blocks each made up of a group of transactions...
transactions have both inputs and outputs.. by subtracting the outputs from the inputs we can determine how many "coins" each address holds but as I understand it there are no actual values or properties stored in the blockchain that represent the coins themselves. The concept of coins (just like mining) is just a way of simplifying more complex abstract ideas so that they are easier for everyday people to understand.

since there are no actual coins.. they cannot be destroyed.

of course the block-chain could be destroyed if every computer running it was compromised somehow but that would be practically impossible... hence why the idea of peer to peer decentralized crypto currency is so fascinating for everyone who uses it.

They "exist" but they can never ever be used, so they are out of the economy. You know, there is ALOT of gold in Universe, but it's not part of economy as we can not touch it. Existing != inside economy

Yes. And chance of that happening is 0

Reference:
https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FCzyO1yv.jpg&t=541&c=kwKLbTWRtHrYow

I just absolutely love this graphics.

Yes, you can make for example ten million addresses very easily and then hope someone else makes the same address and uses it at some point. Is is extremely unlikely, anyway. You are better off if you get a word/phrase list and create bitcoin addresses from them using some popular way to do that. You would even actually make some money then, people scan these addresses right now. You can try this, generate a brainwallet with some trivial passphrase and send some money there, see how quickly it disappears.

To answer this thread, you cannot destroy bitcoins really but you can make them provably unspendable. Sending them to an address like 1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr is an option, but it is possible that there is a private key that corresponds to that address and that someone finds the key, although it is not believable.

You still can make them provably impossible to spend, using the method described earlier on; that is, make them payable not to any address but to a script, you can make the script so that it is trivial to see the coins can never be spent.

lollll

It's possible.. make a transaction that has less output value than input value.. the difference would normally go to the miner as a large fee, but they don't have to collect it either.. if they don't claim it then the funds are truly gone. The original inputs have all been spent, but the equivalent value never arrived on any new outputs.

 
 
What happen men ?? :)
 
do you have believed have seen Blocks, and have discovered afterward they did no exists? (they are not here)

You can't destroy Bitcoin, but there is a method that allow you to not use never again.

This method is called "Proof of Burn"

Have you heard something about this?  ;)

Well, let's be honest, there are no Bitcoin to be destroyed. They are not somewhere stored so you can destroy them.
"I have 1 bitcoin" means, that whole world (or to be precise, whole BTC network) agrees that adress i control is entitled to 1 btc. So basicly, you can be entitled to it, or not...you cant have em nor make em nor destroy them...they are not something.
To make it more "idiot proof", let's say we agree that there is currency called Ljudotinacoin. You have piece of paper and i have piec eof paper. We write how many ljudotinacoins youa re entitled to, and how many i am entitled to. Are there any coins? No...only agreement betwean two of us. Nothing to destroy. What we can do is say: ok this much of ljudotinacoins we wil entitle to "Flying Spaghetti Monster". As we all know that there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster , those "coins" are "destroyed"....it's wrong terminology, but we all can stick with it...

So if we all send half of our Bitcoins to that Nigerian Bitcoin address to be destroyed, then that will make our remaining Bitcoins worth more due to deflation,  that's cool man, thanks for sharing that address :)

I don't think this is a true statement lol.

Trying to get donations?

If you wish to "destroy" your bitcoin then simply send a TX with an invalid output and the invalid output will essentially be destroyed if the TX is accepted by the miners.

 
 
In case this is what motivate you to seek,
Go look some concepts about the Multiverse Heverett theorie.
(here)- That's right that the 'solution' tends more towards can not, rather than an exact solution. 'this if you are facing certain scenarios' 
 

hahaha i laughet so hard.
any takers so far ? :)

back to OP; why in the worly would you want to destroy them anyways ?!

Like Danny said on the first page of this thread:

   - Miners can make bitcoins vanish by claiming less than the allowable block reward when they solve a block.

   - Although regular users can't make coins vanish, they can make them provably unspendable as described below. 

With bitcoin being as valuable as it is now there is no real reason why one would wish to destroy bitcoin.

Several years ago when BTC was trading well under a dollar it may have served an academic interest, or to see how the miners would react to a TX that destroyed bitcoin.

Wouldn't this essentially be the same as sending a TX with an invalid output?

So, I posted about how to create an "invalid" output.

Then you came into the thread and said:
"If you were to send a TX with an invalid output then the BTC will be destroyed"

Adding absolutely nothing new or useful to the conversation.

Then Peter R reminds people of what was said on the first page because so many people seem not to be noticing it and posting nonsense.

Then you ask if my post about creating an "invalid" output would be essentially the same as sending a TX with an invalid output?

Oh, wait. I see now.  You have a PRIMEDICE ad in your signature (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651752.msg7318358#msg7318358).  That explains everything.  Nevermind.  Killfile updated.

On the off chance that your response wasn't just affiliate spam, there is a difference between an invalid tx and an unspendable output.  An invalid tx is simply dropped from the network.  It will never become part of a block and thus the coins will never be destroyed.  An example would be a tx which has 1BTC in inputs and a 1.1 BTC output.  That is an invalid output.   To destroy coins requires an unspendable output.  OP_RETURN is a valid but unspendable output.

You can make a gold coin or gold bar disappear but you can't destroy gold atoms.

I doubt it can be destroyed, but if for anon., you have many other choices.

I am not saying an invalid TX, but a TX with a invalid output (the technical term may be unspendable output - an output in which it would be impossible for private keys to be associated with).

I remember reading a forum thread several months ago (the actual thread was from several years ago) that eligius had confirmed a non-standard TX that contained a an output that it was impossible for a private key to sign a TX to spend. The issue was that the output was worth a lot (it was in the thousands of dollars at the time, but it may have been 6 figures, I am not really sure). I think some people were arguing that the TX should not have been confirmed.

There are also a site (https://blockchain.info/strange-transactions) that has a list of TX where blockchain.info cannot decode the output (I am not sure if other clients could potentially decode it or not - right now there is nothing on the list, but I have seen several TX on this site before).

What my question is, how is a pool destroying coins by sending part of the block reward to an unspendable output different from broadcasting a TX with an unspendable output (with your own coins)

Once again an unspendable output isn't an output that is invalid, it is an output that is invalid.  An invalid output means an invalid tx, and any block including it would be an invalid block and thus never part of the longest chain.  For example a native multisig output which is greater than 3 of 3 is invalid.  It will never be included in a block.

Unspendable =/= Invalid.  Unspendable is just unspendable.  It could be unspendable on purpose ("burning coins" or by accident (wallet software errors) but it is unspendable all the same.


To date 135.20997146  BTC have been destroyed.
(305997-210000)*25 + 210000*50 = 12899925.00000000 BTC
12899925.00000000 - 12899789.79002854 = 135.20997146


I have no idea what you are talking about.  An unspendable output is an unspendable output no matter who creates it.  Nobody said anything about a pool creating an unspendable output.

Since you pointed out this problem Danny, I've noticed that it is prevalent across the forum.  It is sad really because many of us take a lot of time out of our day to answer questions.  But if people are purposely being obtuse, requesting over explanations just to get paid for signature advertising, it's a waste of our resources. 

Yes.  I've taken to clicking "ignore" on EVERY user that has a primedice ad before I even read their post.

Later, if I come across a quote from them in someone else's post that indicates that they have something reasonably intelligent and useful to say, I click "unignore".

It's saved me a LOT of time, and effort.

Don't waste your time D&T.

Take a look at his posting history.  It's over a hundred necro posts and nonsense just today.

I was referring to this post about the pool claiming less then the 25 block reward