Countries like Russia are looking for a way to move beyond the world dollar standard because the U.S. is able to shut down international dollar transfers for particular countries and banks, and uses that capability somewhat liberally. The U.S. probably can't do that to cryptocurrency, so I'd say it does in fact solve a problem for Russia.

A lot of us vote to change things. I've also gone to protests, gotten involved in party politics, all that stuff. It's not that effective anymore. 80% of the country wants net neutrality and a couple million people took the trouble to file comments with FCC; it made no difference at all. At some point you have to stop begging and start inventing things. As Buckminster Fuller said, "To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

I suspect there's a difference. Old-style, the Man says to the bank, "Hey, until further notice, acdha's money isn't theirs anymore." The bank says "Yes, sir." Then you try to contest this using a lawyer on contingency or something, I don't know.

New-style, they say to you, "Hand over your private keys, you don't own them anymore." You say, "I'm calling my lawyer." Maybe the process ends in the same place, maybe it doesn't, but if possession is really whatever percentage of the law, outcomes will change on the margin accordingly.

To the extent this helps the likes of Putin, it's bad. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act)

To bust sanctions is to go against the Washington consensus. But why did bitcoin become popular with American's in the first place?

The answer is that the Washington consensus has evolved to be just as opposed to the interest of every day American's as it is to the interests of states like Russia and Iran. Civil liberties have been eroded in the name of terrorism and pedophiles for a long time now. No amount of voting seems to fix these problems.

The founding fathers put gun rights in the constitution under the belief that the final protection of personal freedoms is the ability to defend it for yourself. Cryptography is the guns of the 21st century.

If bitcoin is being used to bust sanctions, its a problem that could have been avoided if the plutocrats in Washington hadn't prosecuted the endless drug war, engaged in civil forfeiture, used taxes to pursue unpopular bailouts, and just generally gave people a reason to want to exit their financial system.