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Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has reiterated her fears concerning crypto’s potential to destabilize countries and undermine the role of the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.
Hillary Clinton Calls for Crypto Regulation
Hillary Clinton has reiterated her warnings that cryptocurrencies could undermine the U.S. dollar.
In a Wednesday MSNBC interview, Clinton commented about the need for the U.S. to establish new rules for the Information Age and take swift action regarding regulating cryptocurrencies and social media companies.
“We had to have new rules for the Industrial Age at the beginning of the last century,” said Clinton, remarking that the U.S. needs “new rules for the Information Age” because the current laws are “not adequate” for what the country is facing.
Clinton commented on the power social media and technology companies hold in influencing domestic and foreign elections. She stated that the country needs to take “the necessary legislative and regulatory action” to regulate how these companies operate. Following this claim, she then drew attention to the necessity to regulate the cryptocurrency markets as well, stating:
“Imagine the combination of social media, the algorithms that drive social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of some cryptocurrency chains. We’re looking at not only states such as China or 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.”
“There are so many big questions that the Biden administration must address,” Clinton added, saying that she doesn’t think the authorities have much time to react. This isn’t the first time Clinton warned against cryptocurrencies. Last week, speaking at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum, she shared similar concerns, stating that cryptocurrencies have “the potential for undermining currencies, for undermining the role of the dollars as reserve currencies, for destabilizing nations.”
The 2016 presidential candidate is only the latest in a growing list of U.S politicians taking a greater interest in crypto. Perhaps the most vocal opponent of cryptocurrency technology is the Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who over the last year has consistently been pushing for greater regulatory oversight, raising alarms of the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining, and going as far as likening crypto to drugs and snake oil. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and NYC Mayor-Elect Eric Adams, on the other hand, have publicly advocated for cryptocurrency technology, recently pledging to take their paychecks in Bitcoin.
So far, regulators in the U.S. have been more focused on regulating cryptocurrencies in the context of capital controls, securities fraud, and tax evasion. However, amid rising inflations rates and a growing demand for cryptocurrencies in the U.S. and globally, regulators could also soon turn their attention to crypto’s potential to undermine fiat currencies.