100% a fed action. Government influence has been pushing Monero off of exchanges and now this. Why? Because Monero has true anonymity.
specially given its only backing is "trust" (trust that you won't get invaded or overthrown)
anonymous alt coins, real digital cash, are competition to the monetary system. there can be only one.
Monero transactions are inherently obfuscated, which solves this problem. If you want more details, the Monero whitepaper is well written to be accessible for the common reader.
The tldr is it works atop ring signatures: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature
It solves the problem by making all participants culpable. The blockchain community is very good at imagining they have technical solutions to social problems.
But that's really beside the point, because it isn't me who will come after you, it's the IRS (or equivalent). If you spend a lot of money, you're in trouble if you can't explain how you got it. And if you explain that you participated in a network which has as its only purpose to destroy evidence of how you got it, you're usually in extra big trouble.
If you think it shouldn't be that way, you are faced with a problem. A social political problem. Which Monero does nothing to solve. Which is the point.