Big governments cannot tolerate Bitcoin, the digital currency that threatens to break their monopoly on printing money, and to manipulate the economy to accommodate the interests of powerful elites.
Sooner or later, they will crush it.
Once, Bitcoin was popular among the "innovators," tech savvy individuals enchanted by the process that created and distributed the exotic currency, and the promise Bitcoin held to solve the ills of a global economy dominated by big governments and powerful central banks. Like the problem of inflation, usually created by central banks to bail out heavily indebted companies and governments.
Somewhere down the road, innovators were joined by "early adopters," enterprising individuals seeing big advantages in the exotic currency— a better hedge against global uncertainties than conventional hedges like gold; a convenient medium of payment worldwide; and a limited supply — 21 million.
Soon, these two groups were joined by a couple of other groups. Like investors who saw cryptocurrencies as a safe haven against the ultra-accommodative policies of central bankers, and the rise of geopolitical tensions in Asia.
Add venture capitalists, who saw Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) as a process to make quick bucks, and you have a Bitcoin bubble blooming like a colorful tulip in the early 17th century.