Regulate Crypto To Stop Chinese And Russian Manipulations – Hillary Clinton

The former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reiterated her statement that crypto markets need more and stronger regulations to protect the US against technological manipulations by China, Russia, and other nations. Clinton warned that if left unregulated, crypto markets and social media platforms may destabilize America and the US dollar, toppling it from the current position it holds as the reserve currency.

Her comments on crypto were part of a bigger segment in a November 24 interview with MSNBC TV news host Rachel Maddow. They were talking about the manipulation that takes place on social media platforms by various nations.

Clinton’s warning even extended to ‘technology of all kinds’ that she said states and non-state entities may use to destabilize nations and the dollar as the reserve currency of the entire world. She stated:

“There’s one other thing that’s on the horizon, which people are only beginning to pay attention to, and that’s the need to regulate the cryptocurrency market. Imagine the combination of social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of certain cryptocurrency chains.”

“We’re looking at not only states such as China, Russia, or others manipulating technology of all kinds to their advantage. We’re looking at non-state actors, either in concert with states or on their own destabilizing countries, destabilizing the dollar as the reserve currency.”

Crypto Can Destabilize Countries

A specific focus she had was on how the social media platforms that have been used mainly to influence elections using disinformation. These could be integrated with the crypto markets in a manner to help state and non-state actors destabilize other nations.

Although she never got into details, possible ways this might happen might be through manipulating markets, creating hype, and engineering a financial crash via different social media troll farms. In recent years, countries have used or publicly considered using cryptos and other digital assets to get around economic sanctions from the US.

Notably, North Korea has used crypto to fund the nuclear weapons program. The nation has used privacy coins and many other methods to avoid detection too.

The Iranian government has also come out publicly favoring cryptos. In early 2020, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Saeed Mohammad, called particularly for Iran to use crypto to circumvent sanctions.

In recent weeks, Hillary Clinton has criticized the crypto sector and spoke out about the problems that come with the nascent sector. She said that cryptos could pose threats to the U.S. dollar’s global dominance.

She stated at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on November 26 that while cryptos are an “interesting” technology, they can have some negative effects on the US and other nations “perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger.”