Burning

Burned tao or alpha is destroyed. It still counts as issued, so the chain never emits it again.

Tao

Tao is burned by sending it to the chain's burn address. Total issuance does not change. This is rare. It happens only to a swap's block-author fee when the block has no known author.

Alpha

Burned alpha is removed from its holder, but the subnet's alpha issuance (SubnetAlphaOut) does not change.

• Subnet owner hotkey incentive: miner emission to the owner hotkey is burned, unless the subnet's RecycleOrBurn setting is Recycle. Burn is the default.
• burn_alpha: any staker can burn their own alpha with this extrinsic. This does not work on root.
• Swap fees with no block author: an alpha-denominated swap fee is burned when the block has no known author.
• Root validator baskets: basket alpha that can no longer be sold, for example on a dissolved subnet, is written off by burning. The chain emits a BasketAlphaWrittenOff event. See Root validator baskets.