Burn Address

A burn address is a Bitcoin address whose private key is provably unknown. Coins sent there are unspendable forever, because no signature can be produced to claim them.

Three common ways to build a burn address:

• Provably-unowned vanity addresses. Patterns like 1BitcoinEater...Eat... are chosen specifically so the address looks intentional and unspendable. The full address still has to derive from a hash, which means there is some private key, but the structure of the address makes it astronomically improbable that anyone could find it.
• OP_RETURN outputs. Strictly speaking these aren't addresses at all; they're outputs with a script that's deliberately invalid for spending. Bitcoin Core won't even index them as UTXOs. Used for embedding data on-chain (timestamps, commitments, attestations).
• Mathematically-impossible addresses. Addresses derived from "magic" hash inputs (all zeros, the SHA-256 of "burn", etc.) that no realistic key search can reproduce.

Why anyone deliberately burns BTC:

• Proof of burn. Some sidechain bootstrap mechanisms required participants to burn BTC on mainnet to receive sidechain coins. Real money, on the line, no easy revoke.
• Symbolic destruction. Demonstrating commitment to a protocol, expressing protest, or making a public statement.
• Confiscation handling. Governments occasionally destroy seized coins; sending to a burn address is one way (sending to a legitimate treasury address is more common).

Quietly, Bitcoin's circulating supply is also reduced by accidental burns: lost seeds, dead drives, addresses with keys nobody can recover. Best estimates suggest 3-4 million BTC are effectively lost (Glassnode and Chainalysis publish ranges). Those aren't ceremonial burns, but the net effect on supply is the same.

Sending to a burn address is irreversible by design. There is no recovery process and no human you can appeal to. If you're doing it, do it carefully.