The US is the only country that has a vested interest in keeping the dollar as the one and only reserve currency, so these reactions were expected. However, bitcoin is winning in the sense that even the US cannot afford to miss out now.
The US has been trying to reduce the usage of the USD as a reserve currency (it's the largest such currency but not the only one - EUR, GBP and JPY are also used) due to it not having any real benefit to the US while exposing its economy to the effects of financial crises around the world, which tend to lead to countries purchasing dollars and driving the price up which makes imports more expensive.
---
Ben Bernanke (ex-FED Chairman) - The dollar’s international role: An “exorbitant privilege”?
> A great deal of U.S. currency is held abroad, which amounts to an interest-free loan to the United States. However, the interest savings are probably on the order of $20 billion a year, a small fraction of a percent of U.S. GDP, and that “seigniorage,” as it is called, would probably still exist even if the dollar lost ground to other currencies...
> The safe haven aspect of the dollar is actually a negative for U.S. firms, since it implies that they become less competitive (the dollar is stronger) at precisely the times that global economic conditions are most difficult.
