Reading between the lines it appears that they are trying to hold the price up and transaction count up
Why did Antpool begin burning BCH?
2018-04-21 00:10:36 From: AntPool
Some BITCOIN CASH (BCH) investors may have noticed that Antpool has recently begun burning BCH by sending mining fees to a black hole address with each block mined. Twelve percent of the transaction fees earned by the mining pool are burnt. This is voluntary and we want to explain why this burning might be good for BCH as a whole.
The Bitcoin Cash blockchain is at the tipping point of becoming a widely used public blockchain. A very good example of the innovation happening on BCH is memo.cash. After the May 15th planned hard fork, more and more useful applications will be enabled on BCH, using re-enabled OP_codes and enlarged OP_RETURN spaces. Furthermore, the increased block size cap will prevent the risk of network congestion from deterring such apps to be built.
During the forthcoming wave of innovation, we believe that on-chain transaction volume will experience significant growth. The crypto economy is not only about BCH though, nor is it only about money. It is also about protecting freedom of speech and freedom of association. BCH should embrace innovations and the free market, and be supportive and inviting of all kinds of applications being deployed on the BCH blockchain. The Bitcoin Cash community should embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and treat any fee paying transaction as a customer. Even if those transactions are non-BCH tokens, and even if those transactions are not about the transfer of money.
While having active users spending BCH is very important for the ecosystem, having investors who hold BCH is also a fundamental requirement for maintaining a strong economy. Without these holders, BCH’s exchange value loses significant support. We believe that they too should profit from the growth of BCH by their continued stake in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. The transaction fees earned by miners are an important growth indicator of the BCH ecosystem, and if a portion of the fees are burnt, it is effectively miners sharing revenue with the entire BCH network.
The BCH community’s continued passion is very critical for fostering the growth of the BCH ecosystem. Maximalism is a dangerous idealism which supposes that only one cryptocurrency should exists and flourish and that all other tokens are “scams” or “altcoins.” The community benefits by welcoming the deployment of additional application tokens on the BCH blockchain. If we have an arrangement of sharing the growth in front of the tipping point of on-chain transaction explosion.
