Glossary
Proof of Burn (PoB)
A consensus mechanism in which participants permanently destroy tokens by sending them to an unspendable address, earning the right to mine or validate in proportion to what they burned.
Proof of burn is a consensus mechanism in which participants demonstrate commitment by permanently destroying coins rather than spending electricity or locking up stake. Tokens are sent to a verifiably unspendable "eater" address whose private key is unknown, removing them from circulation forever. In return, the burner earns virtual mining power and a proportional chance to produce the next block, so influence is bought with a one-time, irreversible sacrifice instead of ongoing hardware costs.
Advocates frame it as a greener alternative to proof of work, since the expenditure is economic rather than computational, and as a fair way to bootstrap a new chain by burning an established coin. Critics counter that it merely shifts energy use to the burned chain, favors wealthy early participants, and destroys real value without producing anything, which has kept adoption limited to a handful of experimental networks.