And yet, should it become illegal for people to exchange fiat for crypto and for domiciled entities to own crypto all the decentralisation in the world wouldn't help.
You are talking about an extreme edge case situation, where the entire world declares crypto to be illegal.
I will agree that in this situation, crypto is probably dead.
The much more likely scenario, though, is that a couple countries try to make crypto illegal, and other countries don't, and the decentralization of crypto makes it very difficult for the attacking country to stop it.
The banning country isn't going to be able to target miners in other countries or take down exchanges that aren't located there.
Crypto is still useful in this much more likely scenario.
Think countries like Venezuela. They don't want people moving money outside the country, and yet people are doing that right now, with crypto, and the Venezuelan government can't stop it.
Yep, you are completely correct - so far. My reading is that they have decided that crypto is not a threat to their tax raising powers and it might provide a useful mechanism for a para-cash economy which enables more overall economic activity and yet is more amenable to monitoring and tracking and in the limit enforcement.
Stop the on/off ramps they currently use for speculation and the vast majority will stop speculating, as they were only in it for the get-rich-quick factor.
Again, I don't think that making it illegal to transact in crypto will have the effect of "stop[ping] the on/off ramps" - I think the opposite is far more likely.
So you think that if, say, coinbase and others are made to stop accepting deposits, Joe and Jane Retail-Investor are going to seek illegal methods to continue 'investing'?
I am think you overestimate people's interest, and underestimate just how much of a get-rich-quick bubble this has been.
