Gavin Andresen - 2010-06-11 01:34:11

I'll try to answer what I can:

@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} You either have to run a node or trust somebody else (like MyBitcoin.com) to keep a wallet for you.

Your account balance is stored in a Berkeley DB file called 'wallet.dat' (what directory depends on your operating system; on my Mac it is ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/wallet.dat, on linux it is ~/.bitcoin/wallet.dat, not sure about PCs).

The only application that can read wallet.dat is the bitcoin code, and the database structure isn't documented anywhere besides the bitcoin C++ source code.
@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} Theoretically, no, but the code to do lightweight validation hasn't been written.
@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} Satoshi is planning on encrypting the wallet database, so you'd need to enter a password to read it.  (and they need to get your private keys to generate transactions-- those are what are stored in the wallet.dat)
@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} Dunno.
@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} There's another thread about this in these forums; maybe we should start a "Satoshi's TODO list" thread and get folks to volunteer to help out.
@s{quotedtext} @s{quotedtext} Fewer and fewer coins will be created over the next N years (where N is-- what, 20?).  That's a feature, not a bug...

RE: developing your own version: are you thinking of creating a second bitcoin implementation that is compatible with the existing C++ one  (good idea, in my opinion)?  Or creating a similar-but-not-the-same system (bad idea, in my opinion)?