Re: [ANN] Counterparty Protocol and Client (built on Bitcoin)

How is the BTC burned? Does that mean I lose the BTC forever? How is this accomplished, technically?

~~The BTC are given to Bitcoin miners in fees.~~ BTC are sent to addresses for which there is no private key. That makes them impossible to get back.

How can you have an address for which there is no private key? Wouldn't someone have to generate that address and wouldn't you need to trust that person to not have copied it and keep it in secret? Especially a vanity address such as the counterparty one?

I actually don't know for sure, but the way I've come to understand it is; there are basically enough addresses similiar to the amount of sand particles on earth times sand particles on earth and then some. Each of these addresses are already capable of being used. My guess is that someone somewhere in a hundred to a thousand years would be issued that counterparty address and win the lottery. As far as I know its not really possible to have an unspendable address.

It's kind of like if i sent $100 to asdfasdfasdjfskldjflsdjf@hotmail.com via paypal. It would go through, even if that email address didn't have a paypal account. But then if I created that email account and joined paypal, theoretically I would be authorized to claim that money.

I would say that the chances of someone recieving that counterparty address though, are so slim, it may never actually happen. But can someone correct me if I'm wrong ? I'm just guessing.