I wasn't discussing the case of Canada banning Bitcoin but of Canada sanctioning the truckers' wallets. Wherever the truckers go, their Bitcoins would no longer be allowed on Canadian exchanges.
The fiat equivalent would be moving money to an overseas account. Before you are sanctioned, doing so is just as easy as buying Bitcoin. After you are sanctioned, both are equally hard. The difference is that your Bitcoins can be demonetized, while your overseas assets can only be seized if the governments cooperate.
How is it hard? Canadian sanctions only work in Canada.
Say I'm an American, for example. I'd receive "sanctioned" bitcoins from a Canadian and then send them non-sanctioned bitcoins back to a different wallet address. There is no "exchange" being used in this process. I could then happily spend or transfer said coins in the 99% of the world that isn't Canada.
It’s not as easy to move money to an overseas account as it is to buy Bitcoin.
Your money on that account is still being trusted to some authority and your guarantees on it are limited.
The real fiat equivalent would be moving all your wealth into cash first (literally physical bills in your house), which is obviously worse and harder to move.
Your bitcoins cannot also be demonetized any differently than fiat. It’s similar to sanctions on rubles. Both types of value are vulnerable to government bans affecting the price. The difference is with crypto and self-custody you can transact privately despite that (similarly to if you held cash, but holding lots of cash is again harder and more vulnerable to a single government’s stupidity).
If your dollars in a bank are frozen you can’t transact at all. Your self-custody BTC can’t be frozen on the blockchain, you retain a lot more ability to transact globally.
You can transact despite the sanctions, but if nobody will accept your coins because they won't be accepted on exchanges, they are effectively useless, which is my point. Custody is meaningless when your wallet can be demonetized.
It’s more likely someone will accept them and that some exchanges will still accept them. What you’re suggesting requires perfect and total global coordination.
With fiat in a bank, you don’t have a chance since it just gets frozen and you don’t actually have custody. With crypto it’s more likely you can continue to transact.
But why would someone accept your less-useful crypto when they can accept fully useful crypto instead? Other exchanges will either refuse to accept it (easier) or have to mark it as tainted and set up separate markets that accept those tokens and pay them out.
You're right that sanctions and restrictions could impact the price.
What I'm arguing is that this impact doesn't cause the price to be zero, requires global coordination to have a big impact, and that even in this case, the self-custody capability of crypto is still something better than the alternative (no access to any funds or any ability to transact). We're also discussing an extreme worst case (and even in that case it's still better than frozen non-custodial fiat funds).
Flagging wallets to exchanges also requires targeting and many people wouldn't get hit by this. There are also a lot of cases that benefit from self-custody in a world that doesn't have this extreme global coordination to sanction crypto.
Imagine the case where you're a random Ukrainian citizen in Russian occupied territory trying to get your wealth out across a hostile border. Your crypto wallet is not likely to be flagged to exchanges (even if it was most exchanges wouldn't care). You can memorize the seed words and get out safely with the ability to recreate your wealth on the other side.
If you're a random Ukrainian citizen in Russia, you can buy assets outside Russia and have your wealth on the other side before the sanctions. The fact that you can buy Bitcoin in Russia from other Russians and leave is only a temporary workaround with Russia not yet regulating it. People consistently mistake the fact that Bitcoin hasn't been regulated with the idea that Bitcoin can't be regulated, which is false.
The fiat equivalent would be moving money to an overseas account. Before you are sanctioned, doing so is just as easy as buying Bitcoin. After you are sanctioned, both are equally hard. The difference is that your Bitcoins can be demonetized, while your overseas assets can only be seized if the governments cooperate.