Definition
Token burn is the amount or rate of tokens consumed by model activity over a stated boundary, such as one request, one accepted task, one agent run, one user-day, or one billing period. A useful report separates input, output, reasoning, cache reads, and cache writes because providers price and expose those categories differently.
Distinguish it from nearby terms
Token burn is an observation, not a judgment. High burn may be justified by a hard task; token maxing describes a strategy or incentive to drive consumption upward. In cryptocurrency, token burning means permanently removing assets from circulation, which is unrelated.
Check your understanding
Report the scope, token categories, model, harness, retries, and accepted outcome before comparing burn rates.