technically you can. why? 2 words: Satoshi Nakamoto.
It's arguable that the things that Satoshi has never actually implicated his real life identity. His likely use of a VPN/Tor has probably made it much more difficult for people to trace him.
IMO..
satoshi is an
anonymous group, not a
real person. if he is a real person we can track him because even if he uses VPN or Tor network when he exchanges his Bitcoin for fiat money on the exchange, his identity will be found out because on average the exchange tracks the identity of the owner of Bitcoin who has a large amount..
Actually in the very first days of bitcoin there weren't any strict AML/KYC laws applicable to the bitcoin exchanges, most of the exchanges used to happen by p2p method, so only a few people would have known about his identity. And he never sold much of his coins, most of the coins from the starting days of bitcoin blockchain remain dormant to this date as well.
Also as @Ranochigo said use of Tor and proxy servers would have made Satoshi untraceable as he would definitely be using them surely because he was paranoid for privacy.