My understanding is that a Taler is a "use-once" note - you create it from a payment provider balance, then you can transfer it to someone else, but then that person then has to redeem the coupon, they can't transfer it again (at least not using the cryptographically secure protocol - they could give someone else the private key, but clearly that wouldn't be safe). So transactions in Taler look something like this: 1 convert payment provider balance to Taler note 2 send Taler note to someone else 3 recipient converts receipt back to payment provider balance 4 create a new Taler note (go to 1). The anonymity should derive from the fact that the receipt note can't be traced back to the original spendable note, and the time delay between the creation of the spendable note and the redemption of the receipt note (so arguably the system requires some level of minimum activity to achieve a practical privacy guarantee).

So in that sense it is quite different from the account or UTXO logic that most cryptocurrencies use, where balances can be transferred between accounts indefinitely. I think it's interesting to think about what problems it solves - it semi-solves anonymity in a way that might be acceptable for lawmakers and that doesn't require a backdoor (the more typical approach for 'compliant privacy'). The question is whether that is enough utility gain for regular users to justify the overhead - it seems like a simple transaction requires quite a lot of steps, key management is a non-trivial burden (for users who might not even be used to password managers eg),...