When crypto was not as popular, I've heard of stories that it was used a lot in the black market. I don't know how true that was, but even early on, it already had the potential to circumvent government meddling. It is difficult to control because of the P2P trading. We are seeing it at a bigger scale when a government is using it to go around sanctions. Even without centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase, they wouldn't have difficulty finding buyers of their BTC, even if it takes some time. I agree that the US and other governments can't really do much against it.