Does a PUBLIC Bitcoin Burn address really exist?

[o_e_l_e_o]

If you had to choose one Bitcoin address to be used as a burn address.. What would it be? and why?

If you are most concerned with people knowing that you or your team specifically do not have access to the coins in the address, as opposed to the coins being provably and permanently removed from circulation, then any obvious burn address would suffice. You can use a tool like this one (https://gobittest.appspot.com/ProofOfBurn) to create a burn address with a valid checksum, containing any initial string you desire. There is no difference between addresses like 11111... or 1CounterParty... which were quoted further up the thread, or the 1xACoEVx... I gave in my last post. All three are obviously burn addresses and all would have been similarly difficult (i.e. pretty much impossible) to generate a corresponding private key for.

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[pawanjain]

Just did some thinking on this on got a trash but workable idea.

Write a open source code which generates a bitcoin address and deletes its private key.
Get it verified from open source developers and go live on some social media platform.
Then run the code so that you get the public address whose private key is deleted and there's no trace of it.

Announce the address as the burn address and send all the coins you want to burn to address.
Free promotion by going live as well getting the task done. 

[Bitcoin-Eco]

If you had to choose one Bitcoin address to be used as a burn address.. What would it be? and why?

If you are most concerned with people knowing that you or your team specifically do not have access to the coins in the address, as opposed to the coins being provably and permanently removed from circulation, then any obvious burn address would suffice. You can use a tool like this one (https://gobittest.appspot.com/ProofOfBurn) to create a burn address with a valid checksum, containing any initial string you desire. There is no difference between addresses like 11111... or 1CounterParty... which were quoted further up the thread, or the 1xACoEVx... I gave in my last post. All three are obviously burn addresses and all would have been similarly difficult (i.e. pretty much impossible) to generate a corresponding private key for.

Thank you again for your insight. 1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr seems to be the logical choice. It has a long history and if searched in a search engine. Any potential sender can follow the rabbit hole all the way down to the WHY this address is a burn address. Just searching this address can build a healthy understanding of how addresses are generated and their correlation to the blockchain. Creating a new burn address might leave some doubt in the minds of someone that does not completely understand the mechanics of a burn address.  Your insight has been priceless in coming to terms with the most logical solution for the utility we seek. Thank you again 

[btc-room101]

Out of all of Bitcoin history has one address been rendered a certifiable "Bitcoin Burn Address". An address the Bitcoin community can trust 100% that the Bitcoin sent to this address CANNOT ever be recovered . A Bitcoin address so completely unrecoverable the Bitcoin sent to this address could be considered "removed from total supply"

for a long time the private key '0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000'
 had lots of btc, but I notice now its gone, you used to not be able to use that address, so they patched the code enabled and somebody swept the address

so goes to show you that no address is beyond the power of dev-core to grab 'lost' or 'un-wanted' btc

This address is also a 'burn', as there is an hash160 of all zeros, or if there was it would take an infinite amount of time to find that hash that only contained zero's. Early on years of bitcoin, lots of people would accidentally send to this h160 address of all 'zeros' and it appears that they're still there. Of course people use formatted addresses to transfer and not actual hashes

ku 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

input           : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
network         : Bitcoin mainnet
symbol          : BTC
hash160         : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Bitcoin address : 1111111111111111111114oLvT2

Address
1111111111111111111114oLvT2
Format
BASE58 (P2PKH)
Transactions
95,576
Total Received
198.20607395 BTC
Total Sent
0.00000000 BTC
Final Balance
198.20607395 BTC

[o_e_l_e_o]

for a long time the private key '0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000'
 had lots of btc, but I notice now its gone, you used to not be able to use that address, so they patched the code enabled and somebody swept the address

That private key is invalid, has no associated public key, and therefore has no associated address. What address are you looking at that you think has been swept?

This address is also a 'burn', as there is an hash160 of all zeros, or if there was it would take an infinite amount of time to find that hash that only contained zero's.

Even if someone found a hash collision for this address (or any address, for that matter), the would only obtain that address's public key, and would still have to solve the ECDLP to find the private key.

[davis196]

This is a pretty interesting topic.
Even if such burn address exists,what's the point of using it?
This is like burning paper money in the fire.What's the point of destroying something that has value?
Making BTC even more scarce and valuable?I kinda get that,but do you think that some crypto whale would sacrifice billions worth of BTC,in order to limit the supply of BTC and boost the price.
This doesn't make any sense.
I'm wondering about which altcoins have such burn addresses?Many altcoins have a pretty big supply,so limiting their supply,by burning lots of coins might theoretically boost their price.

[btc-room101]

for a long time the private key '0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000'
 had lots of btc, but I notice now its gone, you used to not be able to use that address, so they patched the code enabled and somebody swept the address

That private key is invalid, has no associated public key, and therefore has no associated address. What address are you looking at that you think has been swept?

This address is also a 'burn', as there is an hash160 of all zeros, or if there was it would take an infinite amount of time to find that hash that only contained zero's.

Even if someone found a hash collision for this address (or any address, for that matter), the would only obtain that address's public key, and would still have to solve the ECDLP to find the private key.

Your missing the point, that address for private key all zeros, used to be an invalid address, while 'ku' can't generate the address you can by using ecdsa algos yourself, I noticed last year that the address now had a zero balance, so somebody modified bitcoin internals to accept that addresss,

pk = k * G ( = zero )
y^2=x^3+7
secp256k1, [0,7]

There is a real value for the zero priv-key 'k', it can be calculated, but before last year the address had value, now its gone; so somebody inside of bitcoin-core-dev hacked the code to enable cashing out that address.

There is also the brainwallet key from the null-string "" that generated a non-usable address.

There used to be lots of funny addresses that couldn't be used, all seem to have been enabled in recent years.

Only one that remains & I dont' think anybody on earth has the priv-key to generate a public-key when hashed that is all zero's.

... here the sha256 (public-key) -> all zeros

now the only address that still has a balance is hash160 all zero bitcoin-address.

hash160         : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Bitcoin address : 1111111111111111111114oLvT2

At 95k transactions it used to be a dust account, now at 198.2 btc, but nobody knows the 'private-key' for this puppy, so its a real burn address, as anything sent to this address is going to stay there forever

[Kakmakr]

This is a pretty interesting topic.
Even if such burn address exists,what's the point of using it?
This is like burning paper money in the fire.What's the point of destroying something that has value?
Making BTC even more scarce and valuable?I kinda get that,but do you think that some crypto whale would sacrifice billions worth of BTC,in order to limit the supply of BTC and boost the price.
This doesn't make any sense.
I'm wondering about which altcoins have such burn addresses?Many altcoins have a pretty big supply,so limiting their supply,by burning lots of coins might theoretically boost their price.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterparty_(platform) is just one example to explain why people are burning coins. I quote, " Counterparty has a native currency, XCP, which was created during January 2014 by 'proof of burn', a unique alternative to a crowdsale or ICO, designed to maximize the project's legitimacy by eliminating any possible source of unfairness in the launch. "

So they use this to prove that they are "serious" about their project and from those burned coins they generated "Counterparty" tokens.

In the early days, some people "burnt" bitcoins, because they wanted to reduce the "Supply" of bitcoins and by doing that, supposedly increase it's value in the future. (Increased scarcity = higher value of remaining tokens)  

[BlackHatCoiner]

Your missing the point, that address for private key all zeros, used to be an invalid address

No, you're missing the point. The zero consisted RIPEMD160 hash you mentioned isn't the same as a private key equal with zero. And it didn't just used to be an invalid address, it's still and always be invalid, because it's below the secp256k1 range limit. On the other hand, 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 is a valid one, because there may be private keys that can satisfy the conditions to return that 160-bit hash once their public keys are put through SHA256.

That private key is invalid, has no associated public key, and therefore has no associated address. What address are you looking at that you think has been swept?

That's exactly what I thought, but then I remembered this thread:    
Best way to destroy bitcoins? Send them to the value 0 address?

Am I correct that the best way to destroy bitcoins is to send them to the bitcoin address with value 0?

Public key: 16QaFeudRUt8NYy2yzjm3BMvG4xBbAsBFM

Privake Key (compressed): KwDiBf89QgGbjEhKnhXJuH7LrciVrZi3qYjgd9M7rFU73Nd2Mcv1
Private Key (uncompressed): 5HpHagT65TZzG1PH3CSu63k8DbpvD8s5ip4nEB3kEsreAbuatmU

Even with the private keys the bitcoins sent to this address cannot be spent as the keys don't fall in the allowed range (> 0).

I still haven't understood how he ended up to that address since there isn't a valid public key for private key = 0.

[Shymaa-Arafat]

Address
1111111111111111111114oLvT2
Format
BASE58 (P2PKH)
Transactions
95,576
Total Received
198.20607395 BTC
Total Sent
0.00000000 BTC
Final Balance
198.20607395 BTC

No matter how did that happen, the fact that the balance is now zero means someone has took that money (about 200 Btc) then probably exchanging them to USD played a role in changing the AMM price of Btc
(maybe the one who did it made the exchange at price 50,000$ making 1 billion dollars and dropping the price equation by that much)
Maybe it is just a test of whether it will be discovered or not before the big move of taking the ≥2000 Btc in the other address
.
-Another "optimistic" possibility is that someone at the Bitcoin core did so (just deleting not exchanging) to release 95,000 UTXOs and improve the system performance.

[BlackHatCoiner]

No matter how did that happen, the fact that the balance is now zero means someone has took that money (about 200 Btc)

No one took that money, you can check it on a block explorer by yourself. Besides that, the post you quoted says itself that this address has never spent a satoshi.

-Another "optimistic" possibility is that someone at the Bitcoin core did so (just deleting not exchanging) to release 95,000 UTXOs and improve the system performance.

You may have misunderstood what's Bitcoin Core. It isn't an actual Core where the whole chain of Bitcoin is built on. That being said, a developer of Bitcoin Core cannot delete UTXO by his/her own will. The whole system functionates decentralizedly and no one can remove a UTXO from a past block, because that would make the next ones, including that one, invalid.

[Shymaa-Arafat]

The block chair link u added
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/1111111111111111111114oLvT2
presents different values than the previous link from block chain
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1111111111111111111114olvt2
that gives an error
.
I think the person I took the quote from(probably a copy of what has disappeared from the blockchain site) says somewhere in one of the comments that he/she suspects something weird has happened.
.
In the link u presented, I find 1 confirmation added today.
-more than one, 8 in some, but all added today
.

You may have misunderstood what's Bitcoin Core. It isn't an actual Core where the whole chain of Bitcoin is built on. That being said, a developer of Bitcoin Core cannot delete UTXO by his/her own will. The whole system functionates decentralizedly and no one can remove a UTXO from a past block, because that would make the next ones, including that one, invalid

For this particular address most r in OP_Return, ie no UTXOs. If there r, someone could add (with some TX fee cost ofcourse) a TX to accumulate all the burned ones into only one UTXO to reduce the live forever burden to only 1 for each address

[o_e_l_e_o]

Your missing the point, that address for private key all zeros, used to be an invalid address

It didn't, because a private key of zero cannot produce a public key or an address. It is invalid as per the standards of the secp256k1 curve that bitcoin uses. Again, can you tell us what address you are looking at here?

pk = k * G ( = zero )
y^2=x^3+7
secp256k1, [0,7]

This is not how elliptic curve math works. The two valid y coordinates for x=0 for bitcoin public keys are as follows:

Code:

8f537eefdfc1606a0727cd69b4a7333d38ed44e3932a7179eecb4b6fba9360dc
70ac8110203e9f95f8d832964b58ccc2c712bb1c6cd58e861134b48f456c9b53

There is also the brainwallet key from the null-string "" that generated a non-usable address.

A SHA256 of an empty string produces the result e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855, which when used as a private key gives the following completely valid and usable address - 1HZwkjkeaoZfTSaJxDw6aKkxp45agDiEzN

That's exactly what I thought, but then I remembered this thread

See this post from the thread you linked: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466392.msg14828234#msg14828234