But isn’t the obvious “solution” to this (from a global elite perspective) to criminalize and aggressively prosecute any usage at all of non-governmentally approved bitcoin/blockchain? Including by criminalizing even visiting sites remotely related to it? Which would be successful given that the average person doesn’t even use a VPN

You are right again! Yes and no. Yes because this is something they can try, no because other nation states have tried (like China) to ban bitcoin with not much success. They may reduce the bitcoin activity in their country, but they can't eliminate it, and Bitcoin will continue to grow. At some point in Bitcoin's growth, cutting your country off from it is like putting your own country under sanctions. The Bitcoin Economy is already larger than many countries. Mass censorship in general works for a while but is not successful long-term. The knowledge to fully understand the Bitcoin protocol does take some time to learn, the knowledge to use Bitcoin is no more than the knowledge to use Venmo or our existing banking system.

Let's imagine for a moment that the US government decides to totally ban all citizens from participating in Bitcoin and all VPNs and all ways of accessing it. Somehow, they have gotten all of congress, many of whom own Bitcoin, to buy into this plan. They are talking about not just infringing on people's freedom, they are talking about essentially seizing or blocking millions of Americans from accessing something they own. Could they do it? Perhaps. But it's going to get difficult and contentious quickly. To be effective at any level, a national firewall is going to end up blocking more than just Bitcoin. That's collateral damage that impact the ability to engage with international markets. Plus, nationalizing and seizing assets is not a good look on the international market, ask Russia. And even assuming the US can implement the great firewall of China on its own soil, it doesn't stop Bitcoin from working. It doesn't stop the network from making new blocks and including transactions. It doesn't stop the rest of the world from using it. All you need to continue to access your BTC is a single working connection to the unfiltered internet. Where there is supply and demand to be met, the market will find a way, even in states with insanely controlled markets. Plus, many major crypto exchanges are located in the US. That's a huge potential money maker, just like a stock exchange. And will the US want to miss out on all that, plus whatever global trade which is denominated in Bitcoin? We will still be using some slow legacy system like SWIFT or our new CBDC which other countries may or may not want to use? They already don't want to use the dollar, the BRICS countries are really trying (unsuccessfully) to make something else the globally dominant currency. The problem is none of them can trust each other. Awkward part is that this is the exact problem Bitcoin solves, they just don't realize it, outside of a small handful of small countries.

The US unveiled the biggest package of sanctions it ever made against Russia. The EU did too. And yet it can't even get people to stop buying Russian oil. Could the US throw a tantrum and fight Bitcoin? Sure. But in the long run, I think they'd lose, and their markets and politicians are already pretty invested in it. And their regulatory agencies have cleared the way for Bitcoin specifically over other cryptos saying it's definitely not classified as a security. The US was probably going to lose their status as currency hegemon eventually, we really only gained that position because everybody else was blown up after the world wars. We have people in the presidential primaries, at least on the republican side, saying they will defend people's right to use cryptocurrency and fight CBDCs, some states have even passed laws to that effect. We have multi-million dollar bipartisan PACs funding pro-bitcoin candidates. Hell, you can pay your taxes in some states with Bitcoin. The horse is out of the barn. Bitcoin's market cap is $85 billion, it has passed the 1 trillion mark before. 85 billion puts it in the top 25 countries by GDP, right next to Switzerland. And remember that with Bitcoin's market cap we are talking about just the value of the currency itself, whereas GDP is the value of all trade in and out of a country. That's a higher market cap than the GDP of Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Israel, Vietnam you get the picture. And every year BTCs position gets stronger and the total transaction volume grows. And remember, this is just Bitcoin's market cap, the other coins have significant market pull, use case, and potential as well, though most are bullshit :).

But that's just speculation and opinion, who really knows what would happen. You are right that the future is not guaranteed. It's not guaranteed for Bitcoin, it's not guaranteed for the environment, it's not guaranteed for the dollar. Bitcoin's guarantees that the math it is based on stay true are essentially infallible. The question mark for BTC is "will people continue to adopt and use this?". The guarantees made by central banks and governments? They basically boil down to "trust me bro".