How Does a Coin Burn Work?

Basically speaking, a token burn event happens in the following order:

A cryptocurrency holder will call the burn function, stating that they want to burn a nominated amount of coins.

The smart contract will then verify that the person has the coins in their wallet and that the number of coins stated is valid. The burning mechanism only allows positive numbers.

If the person doesn’t have enough coins, or if the stated number is invalid (e.g., 0 or -5), the burn function won’t be executed.

If they do have enough, then the coins will be subtracted from that wallet. The total supply of that coin will then be updated, meaning that the coins were permanently burned.

If you execute the burn function to burn your coins, they will be destroyed forever. It's impossible to recover coins after they are burned, and thanks to blockchain technology, the proof of burn can be easily verified on a blockchain explorer.