Burned Bitcoins

[crytolog]

Some bitcoins are died because of the forgotten private keys or lost wallets, some of them died because their owner died and some of them will be never in the system because technicaly they are burned in the adresses like :

1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE
1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr
1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxy1kmdGr
1dot1xxxxx1sv1xxxxxxxxxxxxxwYqEEt
1See1xxxx1memo1xxxxxxxxxxxxxBuhPF
1BURNED4fBBJPNBUzytg6Q3HVj7uFGBxNE


Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

[1714749736]

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[Upgrade00]

Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

A common reason could be to get rid of dust coins. Dust coins are really small amount of bitcoins (usually the minimum possible amount that can be used in a transaction). They are sent to an address to try and identify it and link it with other addresses should it get used as an input in a future transaction.
Those who do not like such dust transaction sitting in their wallet can send it to a burn address so it gets lost forever and doesn't connect any of their other addresses.

There could be other reasons why one would want to lock Bitcoins permanently, but they shouldn't be that common.

[tinopener]

Do any governments do it with bitcoin they have appropriated, like burning drugs, I wonder?

[jackjack]

1BURNED4fBBJPNBUzytg6Q3HVj7uFGBxNE

I wouldn't call that a burned address

[huff87]

Depending upon the implementation, miners are allowed to burn the native currency or the currency of an alternate chain, such as Bitcoin. In exchange, they receive a reward in the native currency token of the blockchain. You can send out transactions to the network that will burn your own cryptocurrency coins.

[Oasisman]

Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

~snip~

Most probably thats the case. But I'm just wondering, is dusting attack really that effective for the attackers? So, far I have only seen precautionary and awareness posts about the dusting attacks, infact there were people who mysteriously received these small amount of Btc, but are there really victims who has been successfully scammed or hacked by these attackers? I mean I've seen people who got scammed through phishing websites, could this be connected to dusting attack? Since the goal of sending dust amounts to multiple addresses is to track and try to figure out who's behind the wallet.

[DonateToken]

I think burning the Bitcoins are giving strength to the Bitcoin. Also sometimes  it means to sacrifice to the bitcoin god.

[Upgrade00]

Most probably thats the case. But I'm just wondering, is dusting attack really that effective for the attackers?

It depends on what they are trying to do. If it's to link multiple addresses to one pseudo personality, then it could be effective. If the purpose is to hack and steal funds, then dust txs doesn't offer much except suggesting that a certain group of addresses could belong to one person and gives an idea of how much bitcoins that person actually owns.
Scammers could know your identity on the forum (or in real life) and may know a couple of your addresses which may be empty or doesn't give away your actual worth; a successful dust attack could reveal that information.

but are there really victims who has been successfully scammed or hacked by these attackers? I mean I've seen people who got scammed through phishing websites, could this be connected to dusting attack?

I doubt phishing attacks could be linked to dust attacks. Your address or group of them doesn't offer enough information to support a phishing attack.

[ranochigo]

Counterparty uses proof of burn which requires the user to send their Bitcoin to the provable burn address and they would get compensated in terms of the counterparty tokens. In essence, this makes it such that there is Bitcoin backing on the Counterparty tokens. For the second and third addresses, they're made for advertising with Bitcoin SV on the chain and they receive dust outputs fairly often.

Those are only the coins which are visibly burned. You can also burn Bitcoins by sending it using OP_return which ensures that the output doesn't bloat the Blockchain through adding unnecessary UTXOs and that it is provably burned. You can track it by parsing the Blockchain or use Bitcoin Core's commands to get the current amount of UTXOs. Note that it includes Bitcoins that are accidentally lost through errors by miners and such.

[odolvlobo]

 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 is also a popular burn address.

[crytolog]

1111111111111111111114oLvT2 is also a popular burn address.

these adresses has no privtekey right?

[Asuspawer09]

Some bitcoins are died because of the forgotten private keys or lost wallets, some of them died because their owner died and some of them will be never in the system because technicaly they are burned in the adresses like :

1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE
1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr
1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxy1kmdGr
1dot1xxxxx1sv1xxxxxxxxxxxxxwYqEEt
1See1xxxx1memo1xxxxxxxxxxxxxBuhPF
1BURNED4fBBJPNBUzytg6Q3HVj7uFGBxNE


Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

They were not really burned bitcoin because they still exist and it's not the same with the others where we used the term burn where we literally deleted the token existence.

I'm not aware of this kind of address, how do they know that it is already a lost bitcoin or the owner is already dead? do they know the identity of the users?

At some point we never know if maybe if they would know it's a lost bitcoin already they could confiscate that funds may be depending on the wallet. But for sure this lost bitcoin slightly adds strength to the market of bitcoin decreasing the supply in the market.

[ranochigo]

They were not really burned bitcoin because they still exist and it's not the same with the others where we used the term burn where we literally deleted the token existence.

I'm not aware of this kind of address, how do they know that it is already a lost bitcoin or the owner is already dead? do they know the identity of the users?

They're sent to an address that is crafted specifically to make sure that the private key to the address would be extremely difficult/near impossible to find. They basically used whichever characters that they like at the start and made sure the checksum checks out at the end. Those coins are indeed burned because they are sent to an address for which it's corresponding private key could never be found, essentially removing it from circulation.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

The philosophy is to announce their message on the blockchain, which is considered a terrible advertisement IMO, but who cares. They spam money, I wish they started spamming on my addresses too.

1BURNED4fBBJPNBUzytg6Q3HVj7uFGBxNE

A burn address is considered to be a "proof" that no one generated. For example this address: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2. You know that it's a burn address because if someone had the private key, he could have the private key of any address (due to possibilities). You have 1 in 58⁶ possibilities to create an address starting with 1BURNED which isn't impossible. It's actually very easy even for an average CPU.

these adresses has no privtekey right?

What do you mean by saying they don't have a private key? That there are no generally or that no one knows them? Every address can be created by around 2⁹⁶ private keys. There is no proof that the above addresses have a private key, it's just highly likely to have one. And not just one, but around 2⁹⁶ that no one knows. Mind-blowing.  

[Lauren Smith]

Do any governments do it with bitcoin they have appropriated, like burning drugs, I wonder?

Lol! How can you compare bitcoin to drugs?? No, I doubt they do that, they most likely sell them and use the money for their own personal gain.

Why people send bitcoins to the "burned" adresses? What is the philosophy behind it?

A common reason could be to get rid of dust coins. Dust coins are really small amount of bitcoins (usually the minimum possible amount that can be used in a transaction). They are sent to an address to try and identify it and link it with other addresses should it get used as an input in a future transaction.
Those who do not like such dust transaction sitting in their wallet can send it to a burn address so it gets lost forever and doesn't connect any of their other addresses.

There could be other reasons why one would want to lock Bitcoins permanently, but they shouldn't be that common.

Thank you, for the explanation, this makes sense to me. I have been wondering for quite a while about all this. Personally, I would just open up a new bitcoin wallet but I guess they have their reasons.

[20kevin20]

Some people use them for getting rid of dust, although this might not end up as a good idea. It makes you prone to dust attacks and sometimes leaving the dust alone & just freezing the addresses containing it is the best thing you can really do. By sending remaining sats to a dust address, you might give some bad actors a clue about the addresses you own. Humans do recognizable patterns, and they are recognized with cryptocurrencies as well.

[dansus021]

1BURNED4fBBJPNBUzytg6Q3HVj7uFGBxNE

I wouldn't call that a burned address

same here i dont think bitcoin have official burned address

but i do agree with thread started remember bitcoin lost on hard drive that is one sample of many thousand lost bitcoin, they are not actually lost but dead in wallet

[Veshem]

All those Bitcoins are not dead at all. They are just lost somewhere in Blockchain locked on wallets and no one thief can hack them. I’m not sure about people’s philosophy towards “burning” BTC. Maybe in such a manner they reduce the number of coins.

[BlackHatCoiner]

All those Bitcoins are not dead at all. They are just lost somewhere in Blockchain locked on wallets and no one thief can hack them. I’m not sure about people’s philosophy towards “burning” BTC. Maybe in such a manner they reduce the number of coins.

You say it by yourself, wrongly, but you do. If these coins are not owned by anyone and no one can ever access them, then they're burned/gone forever.

no one thief can hack them.

Why do you name him "thief"? Thief is a person that steals from other people. Burnt coins are deliberately not owned by anyone. As for the "hack", blockchain isn't a server's database that you can DDoS and change values. Whether the coins are sitting on a burn address or not.

[jackjack]

All those Bitcoins are not dead at all. They are just lost somewhere in Blockchain locked on wallets and no one thief can hack them. I’m not sure about people’s philosophy towards “burning” BTC. Maybe in such a manner they reduce the number of coins.

What are you saying?
Not dead at all? Wallet? Thief? Hack?
The coins can be used by the first person or bot finding and using a private key such that
RIPEMD-160(SHA256(public key)) = 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That's all, just like all other (legacy) addresses