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blockchaincryptocurrencysubstratepolkadot

How do I generate a burn address for Substrate chains like Polkadot or Kusama?

I want to generate an address without a key so that it can serve as a burn address - an address to which tokens can be sent and never retrieved from. How do I generate one?

Solution

  • You can use PolkadotJS' keyring submodule:

    const { encodeAddress } = require('@polkadot/keyring');

const zero = '0x' + '00'.repeat(32);
const output = encodeAddress(zero, 2);

console.log(output.toString());

    This outputs: CaKWz5omakTK7ovp4m3koXrHyHb7NG3Nt7GENHbviByZpKp which is a Kusama address (due to the 2 in encodeAddress above) that can never be unlocked - there is no private key for the public key 0x0.

    Alternatively, encodeAddress(new Uint8Array(32)) also works - u8a is initialized with 0s, and for random addresses, you can use encodeAddress(randomAsU8a()).