[AmericanChopper]

The US could cripple bitcoins value quite easily by sanctioning exchanges. The main power it would have to enforce those sanctions would be to cut off any institutions that violate them from handling USD. This is how the US manages to do stuff like force French banks to uphold US sanction on Iran.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bnp-plans-to-slash-dividend-sel...

That wouldn’t eradicate Bitcoin or anything, but it would make it far less useful than it is currently, and have a significant impact on its value. It would also be a pretty bad idea, because the power of US sanctions is largely derived from demand for USD, and political volatility puts downward pressure on that demand, so you generally don’t want to waste it on frivolous sanctions.