Hillary Clinton Wants Regulation of Cryptocurrencies to Prevent China and Russia From Manipulating Them

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the regulation of cryptocurrency markets in order to protect the U.S. from manipulation by external actors such as Russia and China. 

She made the comments on November 24, 2021 during an appearance on MSNBC TV news host Rachel Maddow’s show where they discussed the topic of social media platforms by certain nations.

Clinton then broadened her warning to “technology of all kinds”, which she believes states and other non-state actors could use to destabilize countries and the dollar as the global currency of the world. Clinton declared “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,” Clinton remarked. 

“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.”

Clinton focused on how social media platforms, which have allegedly been used to influence elections via disinformation, could be used alongside cryptocurrency markets to destabilize other countries. 

Although the former Secretary of State didn’t go into further detail, Brian Newar of Coin Telegraph says destabilization could potentially occur “via manipulating markets, manufacturing hype, or even engineering a financial crash through social media troll farms.”

In the last few years, various countries have used or entertained the idea of using cryptocurrency to circumvent American sanctions. 

The Iranian government has publicly made favorable statements towards cryptocurrencies. In early 2020, Saeed Mohammad, a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, called for Iran to use cryptocurrencies to go around sanctions. 

Previously, at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on November 19, 2021, Clinton stated that while cryptocurrencies are an “interesting” technology, she believes that they could negatively affect the U.S. and other countries “perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger.”

Clinton can complain all she wants about cryptocurrencies. The U.S. dollar’s status as the reserve currency of the world has not benefited Middle Americans whatsoever. It only serves financial interests and national security groups who are obsessed with projecting power abroad — projects that offer very little return to Middle Americans. 

Cryptocurrencies, for whatever faults they may have, at least offer a free-market solution to the problem that fiat currencies come with.