Coinbase

coinbase is the special name given to the first transaction in every block. The winning miner creates this special transaction once they solve the current block puzzle.

The Coinbase transaction contains the block reward + the total of all transaction fees combined. The payee of this transaction is the winning miner.

The content of the 'input' of a generation transaction. While regular transactions use the 'inputs' section to refer to their parent transaction outputs, a generation transaction has no parent, and creates new coins from nothing.

The coinbase can contain any arbitrary data. The genesis block famously contains the dated title of an FT article:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

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Note: Coinbase is not to be confused with the US-based trading exchange.