Yes you can, access to free information and finance should be a human right. Just like cash can be used by anyone, so electronic cash should be.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain were never really about human rights.

It's all about making a quick buck. If that's at the expense of other people or our environment, who gives a fuck right?

Those crypto tools came from techno-anarchist circles, heavily based on academia research - not much of a quick buck there, more passion for privacy and aversion to government and any form of control. Speculators are great for funding and where is money you'll see scammers quickly as well.

Something to consider: shutting down the internet is very expensive for a government and is likely to results in social unrest and have a lot of other negative side effects.

For first-world countries yes, but we see second and third world countries do it all the time.

And that damages their reputation, creates social unrest, makes it difficult to do business from there, etc. I just want to say that yes, you can shut down the internet but that's already a quite high bar if that's the only way a government can stop a system.

It seems that the people who need it the most are least likely to gain utility from it.