So is monero banned? The availability of monero in exchanges in very limited. I guess it depends on your definition of banned. 

 Still available on Kraken and a few others

But there are many options to buy, swap, and sell it

https://pb.envs.net/?fddbb02f3599dc10#5o6C51E4iNNQC5APBegEsMRTcDsNcHUFZXEMz6RNbUhq 

 Yes or somehow block transactions with bitcoin nodes on the internet somehow  

 This is crap. Only ordinary citizens will be affected. Criminals will operate out of crypto havens like El Salvador

😖 

 Banning exchanges could be accomplished. Most would see it as a nuclear option though. It seems more probable that some form of key registration will be used to control the currency flow. 

 So, KYC of your key 

 If your coin isn't kyc'ed then you are a money laundering criminal. Eventually, all coins will be on a whitelist if more and more people start complying. KYC coin is a dystopian future. 

 But couldn't you use VPN to bypass this if you had your own node 

 It's literally one extra step. That's the worst they can do.

Instead of:
Exchange <-> XMR

It's now:
Exchange <-> LTC, DOGE, BCH (or your crypto of choice) <-> XMR

You can also get get cash, or digital fiat, for XMR directly with crytpo ATMs and things like LocalMonero and Haveno(soon)

https://pb.envs.net/?fddbb02f3599dc10#5o6C51E4iNNQC5APBegEsMRTcDsNcHUFZXEMz6RNbUhq

https://image.nostr.build/1508d3f3ddedcb86288e8241d562bcd6c4b3b8f0dd5990d764db380b9d336628.png