Any chance the Mt. Gox collapse, or at least the news coverage that followed, was a psy-op to damage bitcoin?
No, Karpeles was enough of an ass to do it all by himself.
The US Government doesn't seem to care about Bitcoin one way or the other. At the Senate hearing last December, no Federal agency called for new legislation.
China and Russia, on the other hand, are very anti-Bitcoin.
Despite any Snowden revelations implying a likelihood to the contrary, I really doubt the USG would ever countenance doing something like that unless perhaps it had somehow been manipulated into doing so.
Seemingly though, there
was a well coordinated media FUD campaign broadcast immediately after the closure pronouncing the imminent demise of bitcoin. At the time, this all seemed so ridiculously retarded to me that I've often wondered whether someone had financed a negative PR campaign merely to tar bitcoin with the Mt. Gox imbroglio. If so, it worked brilliantly!
