wow, that's a bitcoin data gold mine.

I know people here have put great faith on bitcoin's ability of preventing double-spending, or creating coins out of thin air, because that's one of the cornerstone of this currency and the foundation of bitcoin's value.

But as a paranoid person as I am, I feel much more comfortable if there's a way to independently count (or estimate) the total amount bitcoins in circulation, without relying on 50 btc x (# of blocks) calculation. -- i.e. can we look at all blocks, add up all the amount flowing into recipient addresses, then subtract whatever flows out of these addresses, and get the total amount of bitcoin in circulation?

This way, if there's some evil government or evil scientist finds a way bypassing the double-spending prevention mechanism, they will have to expose themselves via block chain data.