Block Reward

Definition

The block reward is the compensation a miner may claim when producing a valid Bitcoin block. It consists of two separate components: the block subsidy, which introduces newly issued bitcoin, and the transaction fees paid by transactions included in that block. The miner claims the permitted amount through the coinbase transaction. These components should not be confused because the subsidy follows a predetermined reduction schedule, while fees depend on the transactions selected and their spending amounts. A block containing unusually high fees can therefore have a larger total reward than another block with the same subsidy. The reward is not spendable immediately; coinbase outputs must satisfy Bitcoin's maturity requirement. Mining pools may distribute proceeds according to their own accounting agreements, so an individual participant's payout is not necessarily the same thing as the network-level block reward.