The term is not always literal. By destroying the only copy of the wallet’s private key, the funds become irrecoverable unless the cryptography is broken, which would destroy all of the currency’s value. And yes, the private key can be literally printed and burned.
Edit: they sent it to nonexistent Dogecoin addresses, meaning that in all likelihood there is no private key to theoretically reverse-compute.
The term is not always literal. By destroying the only copy of the wallet’s private key, the funds become irrecoverable unless the cryptography is broken, which would destroy all of the currency’s value. And yes, the private key can be literally printed and burned.
Edit: they sent it to nonexistent Dogecoin addresses, meaning that in all likelihood there is no private key to theoretically reverse-compute.
Unless you manage to break the cryptography and keep it a secret 🤑 😂