Is there a remote Bitcoin API that doesn't require anything to be stored locally?

Question

What I imagine is a trusted centralized server (say run by Mt. Gox or some other exchange), that exposes a simple medium/low level API (let's say in JSON):

getTransaction(fromAddress)
getTxDetails()
executeTransaction()
...

I know BitcoinJ does't store the whole blockchain, but it does store and update the headers. The method I seek will save me the hassle of managing any local data except the actual keys/addresses.

I would not have to give this transaction my private key, but rather use some sort of Offline Transaction equivalent. Is there something close to this? Is somebody building this? (If not, someone should!)

This seems to be a start in this direction: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55822.0 — ripper234, Dec 28 '11 at 22:01
@D.H. - Might be. Still, I don't like how that question is formulated ... to me at least, it's a bit harder to understand it than my qusetion. What do you guys think? — ripper234, Dec 28 '11 at 23:30
Followup - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2334/what-bitcoinjs-exit-nodesexist — ripper234, Dec 28 '11 at 23:37
Hmm, so you want something like a Blockchain Browser that provides data for addresses in your wallet (list of txs, and their details) and accept you sending your own txs, that you generate on your own client? Well, guess I'm slowly working on something like that... — ThePiachu, Dec 29 '11 at 00:22
@ThePiachu - There seem to be several such efforts. The key point is that I want to run some minimal stateless code to generate transactions, and then forward this TX to the API. What are you working on? Care to share? — ripper234, Dec 29 '11 at 07:32
@ripper234 I'm working on Bitcoin implementation in Go - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55722.msg662703 . I'm aiming to handle standard Bitcoin messages as HTTP POSTs. — ThePiachu, Dec 29 '11 at 15:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 19 '12 at 06:35

2

This question is a little old now. But you could use the blockchain.info JSON RPC api. It is designed to be compatible with the original Bitcoind implementation and most functions can operate without private keys.

http://blockchain.info/json_rpc_api

edited Jun 19 '12 at 06:35

ripper234

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answered Jun 19 '12 at 00:12

Updated link: https://blockchain.info/api – Hut8 Apr 29 '15 at 02:42

Is there a remote Bitcoin API that doesn't require anything to be stored locally?

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