Coinbase Transaction

A coinbase transaction, also called a generation transaction, is the first transaction in every proof-of-work block and the only one that creates new coins out of nothing. It pays the block reward plus the fees from all the other transactions in that block to whoever mined it. Unlike ordinary transactions it has no real inputs; its input field holds arbitrary data, which is where miners historically embedded messages, including the famous newspaper headline in Bitcoin's first block. Coins from a coinbase transaction usually cannot be spent until a maturity period passes, 100 blocks on Bitcoin, which protects recipients if the block is later discarded by a reorg. The name has nothing to do with the exchange of the same name.