With all the "red tape" surrounding alt currencies, do you think there's room for "alt currencies" which technically only behave as a "tranfer" mechanism? In other words, if the alt currency was tied to the value of US Dollar, then folks who used it could simply use it as a mechanism for transferring the value reliably to someone.<p>This, I assume, would also open room for innovation since existing alternative currencies which are supposed to behave and be traded exactly as real currencies are also regulated as currencies. Perhaps governments couldn't regulate such a "currency" since its properties are far different than real currencies.
I'm even thinking (outside the box here) that one could say "This is worth 1 USD, and is to be used only for purposes of transferring value between accounts". Rules-based system where everyone participating in that particular ecosystem is participating based on the rules set forth by the coin. It's obviously not supply / demand, but since technically it's never used for anything but transfer of value, you're simply creating a mechanism by which people can avoid transaction fees (ie. PayPal, and name your current cc processor).
Anything that allows drugs dealers, terrorists and pedophiles to run wild is going to get regulated. Anything that doesn't isn't anonymous, untraceable, etc. That's the fundamental problem; even if you were to out-lawyer the people making the laws, that would only stop them until they could make a new law. (Optimistically.)
I think the trick would be to try to ensure the "mining" of the coin ended up such that the cost to mine the coin cost approximately $1USD. So in the end someone who has this particular coin spent approx $1 in electric / other to produce / mine it.
Even if the cost to mine the coin ended up being slightly more than $1USD, over time as the coin is transferred multiple times to multiple people, the value increases due to the fact that there are no transaction fees.