List of burn addresses for altcoins (provably unspendable addresses)

[Hazard]

The following addresses can be used to burn coins. Burning is a method of effectively destroying coins such that they can never be spent again. Coins can be burnt by sending them to the following addresses, which are guaranteed to have no known or discoverable private key.

The reason the coins sent to these addresses are now gone forever is that the burn addresses are demonstrably made up addresses, instead of being created together with the corresponding private key that would be required to spend the burnt coins.

26 characters of each burn address, CryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXX, are so perfectly ordered as to be obviously specifically chosen. (The remaining 6 characters, like the last 6 characters of any address, are automatically calculated and serve as a safety check feature.) This guarantees that there is no known matching private key for this address. In other words, the chance of anyone guessing the private key to spend the burnt coin at that address is the same as the chance of guessing any private key for any other bitcoin address: practically zero.

Burn addresses can be used for many different purposes including provably fair distribution of a new currency, premine destruction, and more.

Below are burn addresses for the 27 most common address prefixes. Please use the one that suits your coin. For example, LiteCoin addresses start with ‘L’ so you would choose the corresponding address below.

1CryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXXSdVx52
AHCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXainVwi
BFCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXXKgT3c
CJCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXYQmsK4
DsCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXXbTNBT
EgCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXbTFasY
FVCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXcBdXmn
GbCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXYinemm
HNCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZXv4qR
iTCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXc1kwov
JXCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXYud2Gk
K8CryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXYCGfe2
LbCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXXGon58
MXCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXY9SEys
NTCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZN9MLM
ocCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZ2aQRa
PKCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXXMNDfN
QgCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXb6QD3H
RWCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZ2aHBf
SaCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZ78XsA
TRCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXX6gvik
UPCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXcC6n5f
VtCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXdESejm
WYCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXX3q1uE
XWCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXZ4kKKN
YPCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXa3PjjF
ZNCryptoLifeDotNetBurnAddrXXaC6vBa

[bit1]

^{Very smart, But now everybody will do its own burn adresses .}  

[Spoetnik]

What if we could prove Satoshi's address's were no good.
Would that effect the price of Bitcoin you think guys ? (and then of course raise Alt's value some too)

[BARR_Official]

These addresses aren't provably unspendable, just extremely unlikely to be unspendable.

[bit1]

These addresses aren't provably unspendable, just extremely unlikely to be unspendable.

Exactly,

However nobody will could  accept any adress with BURN word as payment or on an exchange.

[BTCDDev]

Why not use OP_RETURN, which is provably unspendable?

Please stop saying things are provable which aren't at all.

[Hazard]

Why not use OP_RETURN, which is provably unspendable?

Please stop saying things are provable which aren't at all.

Completely different use case.

But you're right, let me modify my post to say that there is a 1 / 2^128 chance that these address are spendable. It's so infinitesimally low that it effectively does not matter, but please, continue to argue semantics.

[BTCDDev]

Why not use OP_RETURN, which is provably unspendable?

Please stop saying things are provable which aren't at all.

Completely different use case.

But you're right, let me modify my post to say that there is a 1 / 2^128 chance that these address are spendable. It's so infinitesimally low that it effectively does not matter, but please, continue to argue semantics.

Completely different use case that provides a better solution.

TIL I learned that 'highly unlikely' = 'provably impossible'

Semantics matter, it's not provable. In fact, quite the opposite for someone with a QC.

[Hazard]

Completely different use case that provides a better solution.

Semantics matter, it's not provable. In fact, quite the opposite for someone with a QC.

Actually, since there has never been a transaction from any of these addresses, the public key has not been exposed to the network, which makes them safe from QC attacks.

Anyway, you're grasping at straws if that's your best reason as to why these addresses are a bad idea. Bitcoin would likely die on the spot if QC attacks ever become a thing, so how does it even matter?

TIL I learned that 'highly unlikely' = 'provably impossible'

By this logic, bitcoin addresses are unsafe because there's a 'highly unlikely' chance that someone could guess your privkey.  

[BTCDDev]

Completely different use case that provides a better solution.

Semantics matter, it's not provable. In fact, quite the opposite for someone with a QC.

Actually, since there has never been a transaction from any of these addresses, the public key has not been exposed to the network, which makes them safe from QC attacks.

Anyway, you're grasping at straws if that's your best reason as to why these addresses are a bad idea. Bitcoin would likely die on the spot if QC attacks ever become a thing, so how does it even matter?

TIL I learned that 'highly unlikely' = 'provably impossible'

By this logic, bitcoin addresses are unsafe because there's a 'highly unlikely' chance that someone could guess yours.  

Nobody claims that Bitcoin addresses are provably unspendable, except for people posting these burn addresses, I don't understand why.

Why not just claim that it's highly unlikely someone will ever spend the funds?

I'm pointing out an error in your title, you should thank me.

[Hazard]

Nobody claims that Bitcoin addresses are provably unspendable, except for people posting these burn addresses, I don't understand why.

Why not just claim that it's highly unlikely someone will ever spend the funds?

I'm pointing out an error in your title, you should thank me.

Because "addresses that are highly unlikely to ever be spent" sounds a lot clunkier than "provably unspendable addresses" and is totally unnecessary given the impossibility of those addresses ever becoming spendable.

There is a clarifying statement within my post, which you clearly did not bother to read:

In other words, the chance of anyone guessing the private key to spend the burnt coin at that address is the same as the chance of guessing any private key for any other bitcoin address: practically zero.

[BTCDDev]

Nobody claims that Bitcoin addresses are provably unspendable, except for people posting these burn addresses, I don't understand why.

Why not just claim that it's highly unlikely someone will ever spend the funds?

I'm pointing out an error in your title, you should thank me.

Because "addresses that are highly unlikely to ever be spent" sounds a lot clunkier than "provably unspendable addresses" and is totally unnecessary given the impossibility of those addresses ever becoming spendable.

There is a clarifying statement within my post, which you clearly did not bother to read:

In other words, the chance of anyone guessing the private key to spend the burnt coin at that address is the same as the chance of guessing any private key for any other bitcoin address: practically zero.

'practically zero' != 0

Just pointing this out for those misled by the title.

If you want something with 0 chance of being spent, https://www.google.com/search?q=create+op_return+tx

[Hazard]

'practically zero' != 0

Just pointing this out for those misled by the title.

If you want something with 0 chance of being spent, https://www.google.com/search?q=create+op_return+tx

Again, completely different use case.

Your knowledge of all this seems cursory at best though, so I forgive you.

PS: "highly unlikely to be spent" is probably more misleading than "provably unspendable" in this case because it's incredibly hard for most people to grasp how tiny 1 / 2^128 is. For most people, "highly unlikely" would mean winning the lottery or something similar.

[BTCDDev]

'practically zero' != 0

Just pointing this out for those misled by the title.

If you want something with 0 chance of being spent, https://www.google.com/search?q=create+op_return+tx

Again, completely different use case.

Your knowledge of all this seems cursory at best though, so I forgive you.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script#Provably_Unspendable.2FPrunable_Outputs

Provably Unspendable/Prunable Outputs
The standard way to mark a transaction as provably unspendable is with a scriptPubKey of the following form:

 scriptPubKey: OP_RETURN {zero or more ops}
OP_RETURN immediately marks the script as invalid, guaranteeing that no scriptSig exists that could possibly spend that output. Thus the output can be immediately pruned from the UTXO set even if it has not been spent. eb31ca1a4cbd97c2770983164d7560d2d03276ae1aee26f12d7c2c6424252f29 is an example: it has a single output of zero value, thus giving the full 0.125BTC fee to the miner who mined the transaction without adding an entry to the UTXO set. You can also use OP_RETURN to add data to a transaction without the data ever appearing in the UTXO set, as seen in 1a2e22a717d626fc5db363582007c46924ae6b28319f07cb1b907776bd8293fc; P2Pool does this with the share chain hash txout in the coinbase of blocks it creates.

Different usecase indeed!

[Hazard]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script#Provably_Unspendable.2FPrunable_Outputs

Provably Unspendable/Prunable Outputs
The standard way to mark a transaction as provably unspendable is with a scriptPubKey of the following form:

 scriptPubKey: OP_RETURN {zero or more ops}
OP_RETURN immediately marks the script as invalid, guaranteeing that no scriptSig exists that could possibly spend that output. Thus the output can be immediately pruned from the UTXO set even if it has not been spent. eb31ca1a4cbd97c2770983164d7560d2d03276ae1aee26f12d7c2c6424252f29 is an example: it has a single output of zero value, thus giving the full 0.125BTC fee to the miner who mined the transaction without adding an entry to the UTXO set. You can also use OP_RETURN to add data to a transaction without the data ever appearing in the UTXO set, as seen in 1a2e22a717d626fc5db363582007c46924ae6b28319f07cb1b907776bd8293fc; P2Pool does this with the share chain hash txout in the coinbase of blocks it creates.

Different usecase indeed!

Could counterparty have used OP_RETURN transactions to bootstrap their network? The answer is no, and that's why they used a burn address.

https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr?offset=450&filter=0

Just one of many examples.

[maincoin]

Thanks for the list

[rikkejohn]

It's a good list, and in real terms, the only thing proven beyond doubt was by me "I think therefore I am". If you think Descartes proved that,  you missed the point of the experiment.

A bit of advertising, and not exactly unwarranted given the OP set these up and they are free to use.

And is anyone gonna try and guess a key to get his hands on a mass of bagofshitecoins?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Interesting.  What is the point of sending coins to these addresses in order to destroy them?  Is it to boost the value of the remaining coins?  I'm not sure I understand the purpose.  It would seem to me that if you loose too many of any given coin, it would limit adoption somewhat though I do understand the "scarcity" argument.

[l8nit3]

Interesting.  What is the point of sending coins to these addresses in order to destroy them?  Is it to boost the value of the remaining coins?  I'm not sure I understand the purpose.  It would seem to me that if you loose too many of any given coin, it would limit adoption somewhat though I do understand the "scarcity" argument.

I'm in the same boat here, I don't quite understand the use of this? maybe in a situation like XPY where stakers 'accidentally' had the wrong rate and other such blunders, or possibly in the interest of controlling the supply?

It may be better to explain to those not familiar with these things exactly the use of destroying coins, instead of whether or not 1/2^128 matters? (which really, it doesnt with current computing powers, unless using a qc as stated above)