Hillary Clinton Urges Governments to Set Stronger Regulations for Cryptocurrency Market

The former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on governments to regulate cryptocurrency. She said that the crypto market faces technological manipulation from China, Russia, and other nations. In an interview on November 24th, her remarks came in as part of a broader segment on social media platforms manipulation by some countries.

Technological Manipulation

Clinton’s sentiments come as governments around the world grapple on both the adoption and regulation of crypto coins.

China banned crypto use, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender, while Zimbabwe considers doing the same. Additionally, global companies such as Amazon, IBM, and Visa are using blockchain technology.

She remarks that state and non-state entities could use technological manipulation to destabilize the USD as the global reserve currency in her statement. Her statement quote and quote, “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 crypto market.”

Additionally, she stressed the effect of established cryptocurrency chains through social media. Her focus has grounds based on past events. In the past, social media aided governments in manipulating elections through misinformation. Moving on, these social media platforms, combined with the crypto markets, could be used by bad state actors to destabilize nations.

The manipulation takes many forms, such as manufactured hype, market manipulation, and engineered financial crashes. As witnessed in the past, crypto has had its way around economic sanctions by the United States.

Evidence of Nations Manipulating Cryptocurrency Markets

Recently, North Korea used crypto to fund a nuclear weapons program. The use of crypto and other aspects surrounding blockchain technology aided the nation in avoiding detection.

Additionally, the Iranian government has publicly shown support for cryptocurrency.

In early 2020, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei claimed that the country would use cryptocurrency to break international economic pressure. The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Ali Shamkhani, also encouraged Iran to adopt cryptocurrencies during a meeting with university students in March 2020. 

In early 2020, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Saeed Muhammad, urged Tehran to utilize cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions. Other nations are slowly yet indeed following the trend, and this could pose significant security threats.

Over the last weeks, Clinton has highlighted clear, imminent dangers from cryptocurrency to the USD worldwide dominance. On November 19th, while in Singapore, at a Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Clinton said that crypto embodies an exciting technology. However, its adverse effects on the United States are unprecedented. 

She added that small countries would first feel the dangerous impacts due to their defense structures, then onto more powerful nations. Hence, she called on Biden’s administration to regulate the crypto markets.