April Fools’ Fun: Changpeng Zhao Highlights the Mind-Boggling Odds of Generating a ‘Burn’ Address

On April 1, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) shared an amusing hypothetical on social media platform X (Twitter).

He posed the hypothetical scenario of a user generating a cryptocurrency wallet address commonly used for token burns, which permanently remove tokens from circulation.

Binance’s CZ Shares Cryptic Hypothetical on April Fools Day

Changpeng Zhao’s April Fools’ joke about generating a token burn address sparked discussions. However, the chances of it happening are astronomically low. CZ shared the post during the early hours of the Asian session, kickstarting an interesting discourse.

“Imagine downloading Trust Wallet and finding your newly generated address is: 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dead. Theoretically speaking, it has the same chance as any other address. Alright, enough imagining. Not gonna happen. Get back to building. Happy Apr 1!” Changpeng Zhao wrote.

It comes in time for April Fools’ Day, celebrated annually on April 1, dedicated to practical jokes, hoaxes, and playful deception. Trust Wallet, integrated as Binance’s non-custodial wallet provider, played along with the joke.

“Happy April Fool’s Day,” wrote Trust Wallet.

While the idea seems far-fetched, CZ was not technically wrong. Theoretically, there is an infinitesimally small probability that someone could randomly generate a wallet address matching “0x000…dead” using software like Trust Wallet.

However, the chances are comparable to winning the lottery multiple times. To put things into perspective, one can generate blockchain addresses using cryptographic hashing functions that produce 160-bit outputs.

This means there are 2¹⁶⁰ possible Ethereum addresses—a number so vast that generating any specific address, such as “0x000…dead,” is practically impossible.

“Haha, imagine the odds! That is a 1 in 2^160 type of vibe. Good one, CZ—back to work now, no distractions from the code,” Synergy Media wrote, putting the rarity into context.

While CZ’s April Fool’s joke entertained the crypto community, the reality remains unchanged. The likelihood of generating a wallet address identical to “0x000…dead” is close to zero. This means the post was a fun thought experiment but nothing more.

“Imagine that you can randomly generate a Bitcoin private key every second, and suddenly one day the private key you generated happens to correspond to Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet or Binance’s wallet. That’s terrifying,” another user quipped.

However, the joke does highlight the fascinating cryptographic underpinnings of blockchain technology. While every address is technically possible, some are rare and might as well be myths. Crypto users will have to keep burning their tokens the old-fashioned way.