<p>This cannot happen. Every block contains at least a &quot;coinbase&quot; transaction that distributes the subsidy and fees to the block's miners.</p>
<p>Blocks without coinbase are invalid, even if the subsidy were 0.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-02T19:24:20.700Z
2020-11-02T19:24:20.700Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>It's known that even if no transactions get created, bitcoin still creates a block with empty array of transactions.</p>
<p>In this way, I am curious what the merkle root would be. How does bitcoin figure out merkle root for empty array ? if there're even 1 transaction in it, I understand completely what it does, but what about empty array ?</p>

<bitcoin-core><transactions><bitcoind><client>
how does merkle root building work for empty array?
Nika Kurashvili
# how does merkle root building work for empty array?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-11-02)

It's known that even if no transactions get created, bitcoin still creates a block with empty array of transactions.

In this way, I am curious what the merkle root would be. How does bitcoin figure out merkle root for empty array ? if there're even 1 transaction in it, I understand completely what it does, but what about empty array ?

**Tags:** bitcoin-core, transactions, bitcoind, client


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-11-02. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

This cannot happen. Every block contains at least a "coinbase" transaction that distributes the subsidy and fees to the block's miners.

Blocks without coinbase are invalid, even if the subsidy were 0.


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