I'm not so sure. Western governments could had intervened and banned or heavily regulated crypto currencies at any time over the past several years. In particular, the Silk Road and Alpha Bay take-downs would have been the perfect opportunities - but they didn't take them.
Now we have crypto currency companies floating as public companies, and others (e.g. Tesla) heavily invested, speculatively, in Bitcoin - maybe crypto currency had now reached a point where it's too big to fail?
OTOH, some western governments and their security apparatus are all-in on mass surveillance and privacy invasion, and they are going to hate any real degree of currency anonymity, so more regulation could still be on the cards, but perhaps in (secret) consultation with the likes of CoinBase. The likes of Monero and Zcash are likely targets.
Bitcoin is perfect for mass surveillance and privacy invasion.
It's as if all transactions, of any size, can be perpetually tracked, with a courtroom-ready digital signature reducing evidence doubt about who made a transaction.
Also, unlike traditional banks, there is absolutely nothing preventing someone from reviewing that transaction record. No need to ask a judge for permission, no need to ask the bank to reveal records, no need to let anyone -- anyone -- know what you are up to.
I believe it takes relatively sophisticated analysis (ie the kind of real world snooping that state actors do) to tie someone to a particular address without them publishing it. Just because there is this huge theoretical vulnerability doesn’t mean most blockchain transactions aren’t secret from even smaller states.
Now we have crypto currency companies floating as public companies, and others (e.g. Tesla) heavily invested, speculatively, in Bitcoin - maybe crypto currency had now reached a point where it's too big to fail?
OTOH, some western governments and their security apparatus are all-in on mass surveillance and privacy invasion, and they are going to hate any real degree of currency anonymity, so more regulation could still be on the cards, but perhaps in (secret) consultation with the likes of CoinBase. The likes of Monero and Zcash are likely targets.