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As I understand, when Bitcoins are created the beneficiary's Bitcoin address is made public. Likewise, when Bitcoins are transfered, both the source and destination Bitcoin addresses are made public.
From the above, it seems that the balance of every Bitcoin address can theoretically be inferred from the public logs. Is this true? Moreover, are there lists of all Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance, together with the associated balances?
There is a site for that: http://blockchain.info/ Here you will find every balance for every address.
From the above, it seems that the balance of every Bitcoin address can theoretically be inferred from the public logs.
In fact, this is precisely how the balances of addresses are calculated. Bitcoins pop into existence when a block is mined and all transfer of those coins are recorded. This is how we keep track of which address "owns" what.
