Default encryption for wallet.dat

[dukejer]

Well, I was thinking of mechanism that uses the so-called "Trusted Computing Module" in your motherboard, or uses a secure key generated by your CPU's unique private key.

I think this could be a problem if something goes wrong with the CPU or motherboard the wallet might not be able to be unencrypted.

-Dukejer

[phillipsjk]

I have had a slight change of heart on this topic:

A miner does not need a decrypted wallet.dat because it is possible to make a wallet-less miner

A miner just needs to know an address to send the coins to as well as a source of entropy (such as intermittent network connections). The miner then generates a throw-away private key/address pair. Upon coin creation, the coins are spent in the same transaction block to the destination address. As has been noted in other threads, the destination wallet does not even have to be on an Internet-connected computer.
Edit: To avoid refunded coins (and a non-empty virtual wallet), Transaction fees should be payed out of fees paid to the miner in the transaction block; likely (approximating) a user-configurable percentage. Errata: miner processing the transaction can decide which transactions are included or not: no fees necessary.