What was Bitcoin’s original mining reward for successfully adding a block?

Bitcoin’s original mining reward was 50 bitcoins for successfully adding a block.

This reward was defined by Bitcoin’s original protocol and applied to the early blocks mined after the genesis block. It was paid through a coinbase transaction, which creates new bitcoin and assigns it to the miner’s chosen address. The reward was designed to compensate miners while distributing new coins into circulation.

Bitcoin’s protocol halves the block subsidy after every 210,000 blocks. The first halving reduced the subsidy from 50 BTC to 25 BTC in 2012; later halvings reduced it to 12.5 BTC in 2016 and 6.25 BTC in 2020. The subsidy is separate from transaction fees, which miners may also receive. The 50-bitcoin figure therefore describes the original subsidy, not the total amount a miner always earned from a block and not the maximum supply of bitcoin.