Where the burn figures come from

Every number on l2pburn.info can be checked against the chain by anyone, and this page shows how. It also explains why two of the figures are not measuring quite the same thing, which is the one part that confuses people.

Two sources, not one

Burned so far is read live from the chain: it is simply the balance of the burn address at this moment.

Last 24 hours, last 7 days and every bar in the chart come from somewhere else. They are the sum of the burn events the validator set contract emits when it splits a block's fees, collected block by block and added up per day.

The first answers "how much is sitting there". The second answers "how much did the fee burn put there recently".

Why the two can differ

The burn address is an ordinary address that nobody holds the key to. Anyone can send coins to it, and people occasionally do, whether to burn their own holdings deliberately or by mistake.

Those coins raise the balance, so they show up in Burned so far. They were not fee burns, so they do not appear in the daily figures or the chart.

This is not an error in either number. The total is the honest answer to what is out of circulation. The daily figures are the honest answer to how the chain's own burn is running. Adding up thirty days of chart bars and expecting the grand total is the one thing that will not work.

Checking each figure yourself

Burned so far. Select the burn address on the site, which opens it on the block explorer, and read the balance there. It is the same number from the same place.

0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dEaD

Burn ratio. It is read from the burnRatio parameter on the validator set contract, which is the same value governance votes on. What governance can change describes it, and any proposal that changed it is on the governance site with its full history.

A single day, or a single block. Open any block on the explorer and it shows Burnt fees for that block. Add up the blocks in a day and you have the same figure the chart shows for that day, arrived at independently.

Latest block. The chain head, the same number the explorer shows on its front page.

Indexed up to block

The daily figures are built by reading the chain from the beginning and remembering what was found. Indexed up to block is how far that reading has got.

Normally it sits right behind the chain head. If it falls a long way behind, the daily figures and the chart are behind by the same amount while Burned so far stays current, because that one is read live. That is the situation in which the chart looks quieter than the chain actually is.

The burn ratio is a percentage of the fee, not of anything else

The ratio is the share of the transaction fee that gets burned, not a share of the supply and not a share of the amount you sent. Sending 1000 L2P does not burn a share of the 1000. It burns a share of the small fee you paid to send it.

What is not counted

Coins that were never in circulation. The burn only touches fees that were actually paid.

Anything on another chain. These figures are for the L2 Protocol chain alone.

Future burns. There is no projection anywhere on the site. Every figure is something that already happened.