🖥️For Developers

Summary: BlockBurns provides Public Burn Addresses for EVM Tokens on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, BSC, Avalanche, and Fantom. We also offer Burn Addresses for many non-EVM Tokens on Bitcoin, Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and more!

As a Blockchain Project Developer, you decided to implement a burn element into your project's tokenomics. Burning removes tokens from the circulating supply. The financial impact is the opposite of minting and leads to a price increase, assuming the demand remains constant.

You have two ways to engineer token burning, either by the burn() function or the transfer() function.

burn() function

The burn() function is a built-in function in the Solidity programming language that allows users to permanently destroy or remove tokens from circulation within a smart contract.

Syntax:

function burn(uint256 amount) public returns (bool)

transfer() function

The transfer() function of the ERC20 standard is used to transfer the tokens from the owner of the token to some other address. As per the standard, the transfer() function must emit the Transfer event on a successful transferal of tokens.

Syntax:

function transfer(address recipient, uint256 amount) external returns (bool);

Gas Consumption: Direct Transfer in the ERC20 Standard

Gas consumption is a critical factor in Ethereum transactions, as it determines the computational resources required for executing operations on the blockchain. It is essential to understand the gas consumption differences between performing token transfers within a smart contract and directly burning via the token contract.

Smart Contract Gas Consumption:

Transfer: The transfer function is a method defined within an ERC20 token smart contract that allows users to transfer tokens from their own address to a specified recipient. When executing a transfer within the smart contract, the gas consumption involves the cost of updating the sender's and recipient's token balances and emitting a Transfer event to record the transfer. The exact gas cost may vary depending on the contract's complexity and any additional operations performed during the transfer.

Gas Consumption Considerations:

1. Efficiency: Performing direct transfers is more gas-efficient compared to invoking the transfer or transferFrom functions within the smart contract. Direct transfers incur minimal computational overhead, leading to lower gas costs.

2. Security and Functionality: While direct transfers save gas, they do not offer the added security and functionality provided by the ERC20 standard's built-in transfer functions. Using the standard functions ensures that token transfers are executed safely, adhering to the rules defined in the contract and emitting necessary events for transparency.

In the ERC20 standard, direct token transfers between addresses consume less gas compared to using the transfer or transferFrom functions within the token's smart contract. Direct transfers offer gas efficiency but lack the built-in security and functionality provided by the standard transfer functions. The choice between direct transfers and smart contract functions depends on the specific use case, balancing gas optimization with the desired level of security and functionality.