I'll give you this simplistic example. Proof of Burn in the Bitcoin world means making up an address (such as "1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX...") which is essen

I'll give you this simplistic example. Proof of Burn in the Bitcoin world means making up an address (such as "1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX...") which is essentially impossible to ever be associated with an actual key so there's no chance of recovering the funds sent there. Proof of Burn in the Ethereum world means writing a contract and publishing the source code such that it can be verified to match the contract address living on the chain. A minimal proof of burn would be this "contract Burn {}" an empty contract that does nothing but receive funds, can never be destroyed, is controlled by nobody and all of this can be verified publicly. The difference is subtle but important. edit- btw, yes you can also send funds to address 0x0 but this still leaves open the possibility of a hard fork giving new meaning to that address in the future. my example is meant to be a demo of the difference mostly.