[mulmen]

My understanding is that the mining metaphor is supposed to be reminiscent of gold's scarcity.

It is also my understanding that the crypto- in cryptocurrency enables anonymous trade. This would seem to preclude the need to even pay taxes since no government could even track the transactions. As I understand it this is the primary value proposition of Bitcoin.

Why would you want to pay taxes to the US government in any currency other than the US Dollar? I really don't understand the value there. Do people pay US income taxes in Euros? Why? How?