Government is unrelated to shorting, Governments may chose to destroy Bitcoin for the same reason the may ban it. Basically, currency controls etc.
Someone shorting Bitcoin on the other hand has an economic incentive to destroy it. The cost benefit of doing so scales with the size of their short vs the current hashing power. But, a malware writer may have access to a 51% attack briefly without owning any equipment.
Someone shorting Bitcoin on the other hand has an economic incentive to destroy it. The cost benefit of doing so scales with the size of their short vs the current hashing power. But, a malware writer may have access to a 51% attack briefly without owning any equipment.