Wallet protocol

This is a project to define a new wallet protocol addressing problems with the current JSON-RPC implementation in bitcoind. Please feel free to make edits. If you disagree with something, turn it into a "debate".

Explanation

Please see the Infrastructure page for an idea of where this protocol fits into the big picture.

Requirements

• Never use human-formatted data (for example, use base bitcoin units, not Decimal BitCoins nor Tonal BitCoins, which should only be used in formatting for humans)
• Don't require polling (for example, broadcast events for new transactions, or changes to current "work")
• Cooperative mining (see below)
• Allow calculating expected minimum fee for transactions, with either (wallet's choice) locking on the used inputs, or prebuilding the tx and error if it becomes invalid before sending

Debates

Binary or plaintext

• Binary is more efficient to parse and create
• Plaintext is easier for humans to debug
• Binary can include custom transactions as-is for transmission
• Protobuf (binary) seems efficient and easy to use from all major languages

Cooperative mining

The protocol should support submitting completed blocks, such that it can get (just) addresses from an upstream pool to generate to, and send all completed blocks to that pool for verification and counting (and possibly submission to the network). This can reduce the pool's load.