Where did the transaction fee go?

[willmcgugan]

Hi,

I read the "option transaction fee" topic, so now understand what the transaction fee is for. But what I'd like to know is who gets the transaction fee?

One of the first things I did was to test the Bitcoin software by sending myself 0.02. I started with 0.05, sent myself 0.02 and ended up with a total of 0.04. So who pocketed 20% of my bitcoin savings?

Will

[Neereus]

It goes to the one who created the block your transaction was added to.

Edit: A block - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block

[FreeMoney]

Did you manually turn the fee on? Right now no fee is usually required.

Like Neereus said it goes to the person who was able to include your transaction in a valid block.

[theymos]

Here is an example of a block with a fee:
http://blockexplorer.com/b/73261

Notice that the generation transaction has a output above 50 BTC. The extra BTC comes from fees.
http://blockexplorer.com/t/9F6NPZ5WKW