Coin Burning: A Guide

Coin burning is a concept exclusive to the cryptocurrency marketplaces, having been adopted by a wide range of coins and tokens. Though it may sound hard core, but coin burning is a central mechanism that could prove to be a popular feature for cryptocurrency projects down the road. In fact, many Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have integrated a coin burning mechanism for unsold tokens at the end of their token sale. Not only that, but major exchanges with their own native tokens – like Binance – also adopt a periodic token burning mechanism to add value for those who hold Binance Coin (BNB).

There are of course, many motivations for projects to consider a coin burn structure. This guide will delve lengthily into the mechanics of coin burning to provide a new outlook on what the future holds for the cryptocurrency marketplace.

Coin burning – as the name suggest – is a process of intentionally ‘burning’ or eliminating the coins by rendering it unusable. This is done by sending a portion of the coins to an ‘eater address’, which is often referred to as a ‘black hole’ since the private keys to that address are not obtainable by anyone. Therefore, any coins sent to an eater address are unrecoverable and cannot be used again, forever! These coins are effectively taken out of circulation and is publicly recorded and verifiable on the blockchain.

Reasons for Coin Burning

1) MORE EFFECTIVE CONSENSUS MECHANISM

This applies to coins that adopt Proof-of-Burn (POB) as their consensus mechanism. POB is a unique way of achieving consensus in a distributed network, requiring participants – miners and users – to burn a portion of coins. There are many variations of POB which will be discussed in the next section.

2) INCREASE VALUE OF COINS

In order to understand this, we need to understand the basic economic laws of demand and supply. Scarcity is a central economic concept that gives value to a particular asset and in this case, cryptocurrency. Unlike fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies are deflationary in nature. This means that the coin supply for most cryptocurrencies are fixed, with no additional coins created once it has reached its total supply count. The best example is Bitcoin, which has a fixed supply of only 21 million; if demand increases, prices would increase since there is a limited number of Bitcoin in circulation. Likewise, if the supply of Bitcoin further decreases – due to burning, lost private keys or forgotten Bitcoins – then prices would similarly increase since there is now a lesser number of Bitcoins to satisfy people’s demands.

Coin burning reduces the total supply in circulation since the coin is intentionally destroyed. It is an effective method of increasing and stabilizing the valuation of coins and tokens. Economic principles dictate that reducing the quantity of something makes it much more valuable!

3) PROTECTION AGAINST SPAM

Coin burning acts as natural mechanism to safeguard against Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDOS) and prevent spam transactions from clogging the network. The same way how users pay a small fee for sending Bitcoin (BTC) or pay gas for smart contract computations in the Ethereum blockchain, coin burning creates a cost for executing a transaction. Instead of paying fees to miners to validate transactions, some projects have integrated a burning mechanism where a portion of the amount sent is automatically burnt. Ripple (XRP) is a project that utilizes this burning model.

4) SIGN OF LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

Coin burning is an effective tool to signal a firm commitment by a cryptocurrency project. The goal of any project is to add significant value to coin holders, who will probably be the core users and supporters of their service. Employing a coin burning mechanism to burn excess ICO tokens or provide periodic burning schedules (by buying back tokens from the open market using generated profits and thereafter burning them) would go a long way in reinforcing the project’s growth prospect.