Too late, just yesterday the US Justice Department set up the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which will serve as the focal point for efforts to identify and dismantle the misuse of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. US government is now speeding up to determine how to police the cypto-space claiming that it has become a new frontier for criminals and rogue nations to steal and launder billions of dollars. The US government claim that if they could recover almost all the Bitcoin ransom paid to the perpetrators of a cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline Co. and equally trace and seize Bitcoin valued at about $3.6 billion that was stolen during a 2016 hack, then they have the ability and capacity to regulate the crypto-market.
I can't understand why the author think that it's too late. Like almost all powerful financial institutions, US authorities tried to limit the usefulness of the digital currencies in their early days. Then by time goes by, they realized that they can't stop the wave just by diabolisation.
They are just trying to rewrite history, the US government has been aware of bitcoin for a very long time, way before a great deal of the members of this forum were aware of it, and since then they have been trying to find ways to hinder bitcoin or if possible to destroy it, this is nothing new and it is something that is going to continue for a very long time, can the US government reach their goal? I doubt it, but they are going to invest all their resources to try to do so.