Crypto could be used with social media to destabilize countries: Clinton

With regulation, tech can threaten the dominance of the Dollar as the global reserve currency

In an interview segment with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC TV on the impact of the exploitation of social media platforms by governments, Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that stronger regulation of the US cryptocurrency market will play a crucial role in protecting the country against technological manipulation by Russia and China. 

Clinton pointed out that the law has failed to keep up with the speed at which innovation and technology are taking place across the world. This has magnified the risk posed by big technology companies and other non-state actors who now wield unregulated powerful tech platforms with global reach, she added. 

Clinton explained that such concerns extend to “technology of all kinds” that could be utilised to destabilise the position of the Dollar as the global reserve currency: 

“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.” 

The need to regulate the crypto market to prevent such adverse effects on the US economy is only recently being paid attention to by regulators, the lawmaker said.

With social media already being used to influence internal affairs of countries including elections via misinformation, Clinton said that the rising popularity of crypto only adds to the potential of state and non-state actors to weaken other countries:

“Imagine the combination of social media, the amassing of even larger sums of money through the control of certain cryptocurrency chains.”

Cryptocurrencies can be used to manipulate markets, create a manufacturing hype or even engineer a financial crash by introducing misinformation via social media troll farms, Clinton explained.

Clinton has recently been critical of the effects of crypto on the US economy. She recently told Bloomberg that while crypto is interesting, it can pose problems to the dominance of the USD in the global financial markets.