there are better ways to accomplish the same result. My favorite *fun* solution would be to buy $80,000 in travellers cheques and then *burn* them. I leave the rest of the transaction as an exercise for the student.
Well, yes, I suppose you could then leave the country, find an Amex office and file a claim for the missing $80,000 of travelers checks, but wouldn't this generate precisely the kind of paper trail you're trying to avoid? Anyway, back to cryptography, I do suspect that the government will eventually point to digital cash as justification for controlling all of cryptography. Or they will refuse to back it up in court as legal tender, thus helping undermine it. I know there's this concept called "reputation" that's supposed to take the place of the government enforcing contracts, but I have a hard time understanding just how it will work for very large transactions between individuals (like buying a house or even a used car). Phil