user6707: I understand that lucky clients that create blocks get some transaction fees and are allowed to mint a few new bitcoins to keep for themselves.
How do clients know how many new bitcoins to mint for themselves when creating a block?

user85: The block reward schedule is part of the Bitcoin specification. It started out at 50 Bitcoins per block and halves every 210,000 blocks.

user5406: The mining reward is the sum of two parts: Transaction fees and block reward. 
The transaction fees are the sum of the transaction fees of the transactions that the miner is trying to validate.
The block reward follows a predetermined schedule: It started with 50 BTC per block and halves every 210,000 blocks. According to the bitcoin.it-FAQ the last block to have a block reward will be block #6,929,999.
The protocol includes a check that will reject blocks which assign more than block reward + transaction fees in the coinbase transactions. Assigning less is valid, however, the difference will be lost.

6707: <p>I understand that lucky clients that create blocks get some transaction fees and are allowed to mint a few new bitcoins to keep for themselves.</p>

<p>How do clients know how many new bitcoins to mint for themselves when creating a block?</p>
 85: <p>The block reward schedule is part of the Bitcoin specification. It started out at 50 Bitcoins per block and halves every 210,000 blocks.</p>
 5406: <p>The mining reward is the sum of two parts: Transaction fees and block reward. </p>

<p>The transaction fees are the sum of the transaction fees of the transactions that the miner is trying to validate.</p>

<p>The block reward follows a predetermined schedule: It started with 50 BTC per block and halves every 210,000 blocks. According to <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#How_long_will_it_take_to_generate_all_the_coins.3F" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the bitcoin.it-FAQ</a> the last block to have a block reward will be block #6,929,999.</p>

<p>The protocol includes a check that will reject blocks which assign more than <em>block reward + transaction fees</em> in the coinbase transactions. Assigning less is valid, however, <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/13336/if-a-coinbase-reward-isnt-fully-spent-can-the-coins-ever-be-recovered/13339#13339">the difference will be lost</a>.</p>
