Yes i think there is a relation because of bitcoin nature as an anonymous currency usable online and offline it might have increased some online crimes like cross-continent drug dealing and with no ID's and evidence. And so some criminals had the idea of using bitcoins to use bitcoin in their crimes.
I don't agree with that because even before the advent of bitcoin, have they been able to curb crime, they devise ways to discourage movement of cash, still they could not stop crime. They come again and said any money above $10000 is money laundering yet they couldn't stop crime. What I see is someone trying to find a way to give bitcoin a bad name is other to slow down its process and popularity among the populace.
We should accept it that because of the anonymity of bitcoin we can't prevent having a bad image for bitcoin because of that feature it is being use in the black market to transact different illegal transactions like buying illegal drugs,firearms,services and so on and that is because of the anonymity and it means that they can't be traced so i think we can't do much thing about different negative thoughts about it.
Yeah that's right but now there is some bitcoin wallet requires verification, whether they are trying to eliminate anonymity so that people do not think that bitcoin is much used for criminal activity this is the hard thing we are against to make people if bitcoin isn't only used for criminal activity.