Ask HN: If Bitcoin can be sanctioned, what’s the point?

People forget also that the whole transaction log is visible. Your address is pseudonymous but anybody can see the addresses of the people you trade with, hang them out the window from their feet and use any other dirty tricks.

Contrast that with banks that will have to capitulate to law enforcement with a subpoena but aren’t open to hackers, extorsionists, mafia, triad, yakuza, North Korea, Iran, etc.

Bitcoin can be made illegal on a per country basis but a few countries have and are making it legal tender so it will continue to stay relevant in many places. El Salvador was first. Mexico is rumored to be looking at the possibility. It's too volatile now but nothing says it will always be.

It makes sense for some countries where the local currency keeps on losing its value and dollars are hard to get.

Even if it's made illegal all over the world the technology will continue to evolve and find its niche given the restrictions it might be under. It will probably take a few generations for it to happen. The idea of paper money took 100s of years to take hold so it's not out of the ordinary for cryptocurrency to take many more years to become common.

Once Bitcoin became an asset, people's greed kept it going and will continue to keep it alive and evolving.

I’m starting to think crypto is a FBI honeypot. Decentralized my ass, and the ledger is public. The inventor is ‘mysterious’.

I don't know what this means. They can't stop transactions from happening on the blockchain. (A majority of colluding mining power could, but that's not what's happening.) What's being sanctioned is trading cryptocurrencies, for USD etc, on major exchanges.

The Dream of crypto is not for hide in the shadow from government agencies and FBI, or to twart democratic institutions.

The dream of crypto is have real platforms, not FAANG monopolies that can shut you off for no reason without recourse.

The point is to learn more about how Bitcoin works.