Regulate crypto to stop manipulation from Russia and China says Hillary Clinton

The former Secretary of State cautions that whenever left unregulated, cryptocurrency markets and social media platforms could destabilize US Dollar as the reserve currency.

Regulate crypto to stop manipulation from Russia and China says Hillary Clinton

Ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that cryptocurrency markets need stringer regulation to defend against technological manipulation by Russia, China, and others.

Her words on cryptocurrency were part of a larger segment in a Nov 24 conference with MSNBC TV news host Rachel Maddow on the manipulation of social media platforms by several countries.

Clinton's warning extended to "technology of all kinds" which she said states and non-state entities could use to destabilize countries and the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. She said, "There's one other thing that's on the horizon which people are only starting to pay attention to, and that's the need to regulate the cryptocurrency market."

"Guess the combination of social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of certain cryptocurrency chains," she said. 

“We’re looking at not only countries like 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 nations, destabilizing the dollar as the reserve currency.”

A particular focus she had was on how social media platforms, which have been used to influence elections through disinformation, could be connected with the cryptocurrency markets in a way to help state and non-state actors destabilize other nations. Despite she didn't go into detail, possible ways this might happen could be via manipulating markets, producing hype, or even engineering a financial crash through social media troll farms.

In recent years, countries become used or publicly considered utilizing cryptocurrency to get around financial permissions from the United States.

Several notably, North Korea has used cryptocurrency to fund the nuclear weapons program. The country has used privacy coins and different other methods to avoid detection, as well.

The Iranian government has also come out publicly in support of cryptocurrency. in early 2020, Saeed Muhammad, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, called specifically for Iran to use cryptocurrency to go around sanctions.

In recent weeks, Clinton has spoken out against the problems cryptocurrency can pose for the US dollar's global dominance. She said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on Nov 19 that while cryptocurrencies are an "exciting" technology, they can have a negative impact on the United States and various countries "maybe starting with small ones but going much bigger."

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