Bitcoin isn't any different than cash except it’s got a decentralized public immutable ledger and therefore isn't a bearer currency. But like cash its transactions are not governed by an authoritative financial institution that can repudiate and/or reverse them. (It’s proven effectively easier to regulate than cash on the tracking transactions front, though.)

That’s the “anarchy” the paper refers to.

In the paper, the goal was not to topple governments. It was to build a digital cash equivalent where the payment processing happened in a distributed and ultimately trust-less “anarchist” manner. Thus allowing people to transact as they do in cash, but digitally.

All this anti-regulation no laws style of anarchist stuff is downstream. Sure it’s adjacent, but also easily conflated.

Anyway, to be super clear, being resistant to the rule of law is a very different property than being resistant to centralized control.

Cash is decentralized.

Credit, debit, ACH, are centralized.

Crypto is decentralized.

All are subject to the rule of law. But only centralized transactions can be manipulated without coercion or use of force against a one of the parties involved (if they are unwilling to abide).

I don't know any technology that fundamentally cannot have laws created governing its use. It’s just not possible to prevent someone from legally regulating something. But it is possible to design systems that don't require 3rd parties to mediate transactions and do require an actual authoritative monopoly on violence to manipulate, as we’ve seen with cash and as is the case with BTC.