A full 17 million dollars in Ethereum would have been lost forever.
There is an address on the ETH blockchain to which, if funds are sent, they are practically being thrown away.
This address is full of lost Ethereum, mainly because at the beginning of the blockchain both the miners and the new users did not set a correct address, leaving the field empty. As a result, the funds were sent to an address 0 which corresponds to the address 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 which is not under the control of anybody.
As we can see, the address has over 7,000 ETH worth about $2 million and 267 different tokens worth about $15 million, or a total of over $17 million of funds lost forever and, as some have commented, can be considered a kind of black hole within Ethereum.
There are 267 different tokens that have been sent to this address, but why? The answer is quite simple: in fact, this irrecoverable address is an excellent method to burn tokens and therefore represents an actual Proof of Burn, i.e. a demonstration that the tokens have really been destroyed in order to decrease the relative supply of the token itself.
Of course, if anyone ever finds themselves in possession of the private keys of this address, it would mean that they would “inherit” an impressive amount of funds.
