I generally agree with everything you're saying, but it's important to keep in mind that there are two sides to all of this. Credit card companies offer a very, very helpful feature to their users which is the ability to dispute purchases and remove charges for literally almost any reason.
I have done this a few times in the past when some product or service that I paid for with my credit card was unsatisfactory and the company would not make it right. It is an absolutely essential service in my opinion.
The problem is that people know about this and sometimes use it as a scam. They make a big purchase using their credit card and dispute it and get their money back. This type of thing costs credit card companies a LOT of money, yet overall it's worth it for them because it's such a great feature for consumers. I would never use a credit card that does not offer this protection.
I suspect that with cryptocurrency purchases, the number of disputes is much higher than many other more mainstream purchase categories, as is also the case with things like online gambling for example. In these cases credit card companies always group these type of "high risk" purchases under a new MCC code with higher fees to offset these costs.
So I don't think cryptocurrencies are necessarily being targeted here (and i don't know anything about the IRS stuff), I just think this is the natural progression of having a new type of transaction which is higher risk than normal being handled by credit card companies.
That's an interesting take on it. You do pose a valid point about them protecting themselves from fraud and abuse as it does happen.
It's really the IRS side of it that bothers me the most. They've made the laws regarding cryptos so complicated for people who do plan to actually pay taxes on their gains and as of now very few people even know how to report properly. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but the IRS tracking thing really bothered me. Seems like their setting the stage for something...