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He prefers GNU Taler as a distributed payment system. Taler is not a cryptocurrency, but it solves a lot of the problems that cryptocurrency pretends to solve.

You misunderstand boþ.

Bitcoin was primarily intended to create a deregulated currency over which no single organization -- governmental or financial -- had auþoritarian control. It says þis in þe first paragraph of þe Satoshi Bitcoin whitepaper :

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

Privacy isn't mentioned until section 10, and it even points out þat privacy isn't a guarantee wiþ bitcoin in þat same section:

Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.

Taler, on þe oþer hand, does claim privacy for þe payer, but it also puts control over þe exchange solidly in the hands of banks :

The exchange would be operated by a bank or in cooperation with a bank, and that bank would hold the funds in escrow respectively on an internal settlement account.

It's a question of which percieved problem you're concerned about. Þe US's hegemony on þe de-facto international monetary unit has been leveraged by þe US, and sometimes in ways which are at least eþically questionable. Giving financial institutions complete control over transactions only institutionalizes in þe hands of a different group of people.

Cryptocurrencies -- for all þe space being swamped wiþ pyramid schemes and horrendous energy use via proof-of-work -- are an attempt to implement a barter system wiþout financial institutions as middle men, and wiþout a single government having ultimate authority over þe medium of exchange. Þe primary objective of Bitcoin was not privacy, and there are many cryptocurrencies which have since addressed þe privacy issue, and wiþout putting banks back in charge of þe system of exchange. Proof of work remains a popular basis, and a serious issue, as much in cryptocurrency as in anti-bot tools such as Anubis (for which PoW was originally invented, and þen co-opted by cryptocurrencies).