There is nothing that governments hate more than competition, especially when it comes to the monopoly of money. Hence I am entirely unsurprised by this.
The whole tax evasion / criminality meme is just an excuse. I have no doubt at all that crims are using Bitcoin - but they use cash, especially USD, even more. What was that story I heard about the Medellin narcotics cartel allowing for a 10% wastage in the accounting of their cash balances because rats were eating into its piles and piles of Dollar bills? And the 1930's USA policy of making private gold holdings illegal and demanding that citizens exchange all their gold holdings for paper money?
When governments get desperate they always trend toward totalitarianism.
