Block Reward

The block reward is the compensation miners receive for discovering new blocks. It consists of the coin(s) minted per block according to the networks distribution schedule. Along with the fees charged to users to have their transactions included in the block. The block reward is dispensed to the winning miner as the first transaction in the new block. It a is a unique transaction because it creates the new coins being added to the network’s outstanding supply.

The block reward is the foundation of cryptoeconomics. Serving to secure the network by incentivizing miners to contribute computing resources to secure the network. While supplying additional tokens to the network via a permissionless process anyone can take part in.

Bitcoin’s block reward is designed to be distributed every 10 minutes based on the difficulty level of the network. I.E. it should take miners ~10 minutes to discover the cryptographic proof required to be awarded the network’s next block.

The reason this process is referred to as mining is because it is viewed as the digital equivalent of gold mining. Bitcoin miners use the combination of computing power and electricity to solve the network’s cryptographic puzzles and increase the supply of Bitcoin’s available to users. Similar to how gold miners deploy resources to extract gold from the earth and increase the supply to above ground users.

Bitcoin’s emission schedule is designed to halve every 210,000 blocks, around 4 years, in an event commonly referred to as the halvening. Eventually when Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million tokens is completely emitted. The block reward will no longer include new coins and will consist solely of the transaction fees generated by network users.

Further Reading Block Reward

How do Cryptocurrency Mining Pools Work