If you look at the @null account, the Hive tokens just disappear. The value is 0 even though you can see Hive has been transferred. I am not exactly sure why that is the case. Obviously it has something to do with the code.

The account I am thinking of would actually have a Hive balance, it just wouldn’t be accessible. It would technically be in circulation because if someone was able to acquire the keys to the account, they in theory could transfer the funds out. As a security backup, transfer operations could be disabled for that account.