How is Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general) censorship resistant?

[Drysprinkles291]

Is there something in the protocol that hides Bitcoin transactions? I don't think so? Could my internet provider just block Bitcoin transactions and then it would be a censored cryptocurrency?

[mk4]

It pretty much means that anyone can make a bitcoin transaction. There's no central authority that can lock up your funds(unless your funds are on an exchange) and stop you from transacting. In contrast to centralized services like PayPal and banks whereas they can definitely simply lock up your funds if they want to.

I don't think your ISP can block transactions. They can block exchanges and wallet sites though, hence it's really important that you use a wallet whereas you control the private keys. If they do, block exchanges and wallet sites, you probably can just simply download a software wallet like Electrum through a proxy/VPN/Tor or better, run a bitcoin full node through Tor and you're good.

EDIT: feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about some things

[pooya87]

Could my internet provider just block Bitcoin transactions and then it would be a censored cryptocurrency?

i believe they can.
communications over bitcoin network are not encrypted (there is no reason to encrypt it) so your ISP can clearly see the packets you are sending and by "sniffing" them they can know it is a bitcoin transaction so they can prevent you from sending it out.
but there is a simple solution for it: encrypt the communications!
so far there has been no need for it so there has been no solution for it either.

~ run a bitcoin full node through Tor and you're good.

would that prevent packet sniffing?

[mk4]

~ run a bitcoin full node through Tor and you're good.

would that prevent packet sniffing?

That I'm definitely not sure about. My apologies. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable replies.

[mu_enrico]

AFAIK, Tor is a tool for anonymity meanwhile VPN is a tool for availability. The government could actually censor Tor as stated in StackExchange discussion. Meanwhile the government would find it more difficult to block access to VPN, however, China with its Great Firewall of China has been reported to successfully blocked many VPN.

Perhaps the combination of both Tor and VPN would be sufficient.