[jmorton]

There is a coin worth $1 USD that doesn't require mining and can be exchanged anonymously. Is the cryptographic aspect a hard requirement?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)

[gabipurcaru]

I think it is a hard requirement; nobody keeps tight track of $1 coins because it's hard to trade a few million dollars using just that. A cryptographic currency wouldn't have this issue.