In general terms I agree with the OP, even if I would formulate some parts of the text differently
But I often see Bitcoiners being a bit too "nihilistic" or too pessimistic in general -- i.e. they believe that "governments" will always be enemies and they will never change.
What about educating governments too that, for example, too strict KYC regulations may
have even worse consequences regarding crime than all so-called "money laundering" through cryptocurrencies? (KYC services open up a whole new field of crime, with identity theft being now a real threat for billions of people. 1miau's text has been an eye-opener for me too, because before I considered that while KYC is a hassle it could bring some advantages, but I now am convinced it is not the case.)
Or if they don't want to hear, participate in political movements which propose alternatives? For example, about ten years ago, in Europe there was a quite big privacy movement called the "Pirate" movement (derived from the movement to support Pirate Bay). They even entered some parliaments, like in the Czech Republic and Iceland. But it seems these movements are currently quite weak, at least they are not much talked about in the media, besides perhaps some few regions. They could need all support from Bitcoiners and crypto enthusiasts. Also Anarchist movements in general seem to have weakened in the last 10 years.
I think also that the crypto community should propose some alternatives to the FATF-influenced AML rules. Because if we can convince the majorities that there are better measures than KYC in every corner, then the authorities would have to react, or they lose support by voters.
1) We could first educate lawmakers that even the strictest KYC policy for crypto services will not be effective because the real "bottleneck" to launder money is the creation of "clean" fiat. This means that, it doesn't matter how much you try to obfuscate a transaction history, you will never be able to "launder" big sums of money if you can't demonstrate a legitimate origin. And that's what money laundering usually is about: funding some fake companies which can create a "legitime" income from illegitimate sources. You don't need crypto for that. In other words: Crypto mixing is often a really minor step in the money laundering process.
2) Second, there could be measures for non-KYC crypto services and mixers which would be more effective against crime than KYC in many cases. I could imagine something like a preventive chain analysis for larger deposits to such services, and in case of it being connected with a recent known hack, a wallet which was emptied by a thief, or a wallet connected with terrorism, simply delay the accreditation of the funds -- that all without having to store any KYC data! And if then an order from a court reaches the service, then the funds can perhaps still be frozen and returned to the legitimate owner.
AFAIK the
Security Alliance is offering such services, e.g. tracking of hacked funds. We should promote this kind of measures as alternatives to traditional AML, and educate people that they exist and are often more effective than surveillance and storage of personal data.