How do mining rewards get verified?

Question

I understand that a miner who adds a new block can pay the reward to their address per the coinbase transaction, but who verifies that claim? Say, for example, I add a block, but instead of claiming 6.25 bitcoins, I claim 50 bitcoins. Who is going to verify that my claim is wrong? Thanks.

Answer 1

I add a block, but instead of claiming 6.25 bitcoins, I claim 50 bitcoins. Who is going to verify that my claim is wrong?

Every full node will validate every block and enforce that it adheres to the consensus rules. Such a block would be rejected, because it is invalid.

For example, the network rejected an invalid block in July 2019 when Antpool mined a block that claimed transaction fees but forgot to include the corresponding transactions.

Answer 2

I understand that a miner who adds a new block can pay the reward to their address per the coinbase transaction, but who verifies that claim? Say, for example, I add a block, but instead of claiming 6.25 bitcoins, I claim 50 bitcoins. Who is going to verify that my claim is wrong? Thanks.

You cannot claim 50 bitcoins, it is not possible. There is no way to form a block that claims 50 bitcoins because, under current rules, only 6.25 bitcoins can be claimed. What you would form is an invalid block.

Nobody could possibly conclude that your block claimed 50 bitcoins because no rule allows such a block. So there is no way anyone could ever allow you to pay 50 bitcoins based on that block.

There is simply no way to form such a block as no rule allows such a block. You might just as well form a block that claims 50 bricks of gold and try to get them somehow. Both tasks are equally impossible under current bitcoin rules.

All data exchange is untrusted. Every participant must check every piece of information for compliance with every system rule, otherwise they simply cannot understand it. Something that violates any rule is just ignored by every honest participant who processes it.