1
From the 2000s to 2013 there were two main 'digital currencies' that lent themselves to anonymous transactions.
A) Liberty Reserve was a centralized service, easily monitored and not especially a threat to any government interests, but it was controlled by a Russian, and not widely trusted by mainstream people in the U.S. It was growing rapidly, gaining popularity.
B) Bitcoin and related 'decentralized' currencies were based on the premise that 'secure hashing functions' developed for, and approved by, the U.S. government, were immune from surveillance at an algorithm level. In other words the public part of the blockchain would give 'some' information, but the encrypted part was supposedly secure even from government snooping, even though it was based on cryptography designed by, and approved by, government interests which specifically are known for promoting flawed cryptography to assist them in surveillance.
Of these two, of course the latter group would be much more of a threat to government interests if these currencies were truly secure.
Strangely though, the U.S. government waited until the first major bitcoin pump in 2013 to announce it was shutting down Liberty Reserve. The timing was unusual. In other words the U.S. appears to have deliberately steered the public to bitcoin.
Then gradually there was a push to 'mainstream' bitcoin onto conventional markets, something not only approved by U.S. regulators, but encouraged behind the scenes.
2
If bitcoin were a government project, it would have set up various defenses for its cover.
A) In 2013 and 2014 I was one of many people trading on Cryptsy. One of the coins I traded was an older coin called Bytecoin BTE, created by somebody named ‘Maria 2.0’. Part of trading was following any possible news about, for example, a dev reviving a coin, a new wallet being issued, etc. I would Google the various coins I traded, looking for new info, usually several times a week.
One day, Googling 'bytecoin' a vast new landscape suddenly emerged. Strangely there were now two 'bytecoins', both with lengthy histories.
The new bytecoin used an algorithm called cryptonote, and it was clear from the start that a pretty vast amount of resources were involved in promoting it.
Aside from suddenly appearing and having an instant 'long history' that did not exist just a day previously, the developers used almost the exact powerpoint type explanations used in documents Snowden would make public.
A website called something like 'Cryptobang' seemed to expose the cryptonote project, but then suddenly that website disappeared several weeks later, along with caches of it. Versions of the website that are available now are mostly incomplete.
B) Some time after the new Bytecoin was released, an unknown but massively funded entity forked it into a new coin called Monero.
When Monero started, a few things were clear about it.
a) Some group was spending a massive amount of money on it.
b) It was mysteriously quickly approved on all mainstream exchanges. This was very strange, since there was heavy competition for exchange listings at the time, and Monero seemed to have blank check clout.
c) The entity behind Monero was not an ethical entity. The tactics used in promoting Monero were very similar to tactics used in promoting crooked politicians or certain types of scams run by governments.
Suddenly Monero became bitcoin's best defense. Absurd news stories popped up about terrorist groups and 'out group' governments using Monero. So if digital currencies were to be targeted, Monero would be the first target, not bitcoin.
3
Then came bitcoin bsv.
If there were doubts about bitcoin's origins as a government project, the clumsy bsv project erased them.
On its surface bsv is a fringe fork that is not widely accepted as legitimate, but beneath the surface some peculiarities emerge regarding its history, along with evidence of its historical connection to the same law enforcement group promoting btc.
BSV was ostensibly created by a U.S. billionaire, but the first thing a person notices when researching it is that all of its roots originate in Australia.
~In Progress