What is Block subsidy?
The newly issued bitcoin paid to the miner of each block. It began at 50 BTC and halves every 210,000 blocks.
The subsidy is the entire source of new supply. Because it halves on a fixed schedule, total issuance converges to just under 21 million.
The subsidy is not the same as miner revenue: revenue is subsidy plus fees. As the subsidy shrinks, fees must carry a growing share of the security budget, which is one of the genuinely open questions in Bitcoin's long-run design.
Related terms
Halving
The scheduled 50% reduction of the block subsidy, occurring every 210,000 blocks — roughly every four years.
MiningCoinbase transaction
The first transaction in every block, which creates the block subsidy and pays it, plus the block's fees, to…
Transactions & feesFee rate (sat/vB)
What a transaction pays per virtual byte of the space it occupies. Miners prioritise by fee rate, not by…
EconomicsSecurity budget
Total miner revenue — subsidy plus fees — which sets how expensive it would be to attack the chain.
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.