Cynthia Lummis – Republican Senator for Wyoming – recently fired back at Hillary Clinton for deriding cryptocurrencies. She suggested that Bitcoin offers a hard money solution to the US dollar’s inflation problems.
Lummis’s comments follow the cautionary words of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week. In a panel discussion at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, the latter suggested that cryptocurrencies could “destabilize nations.”
Today, Lummis responded to Clinton with the opposite perspective. In a tweet, she said that Bitcoin could help “stabilize” an otherwise unstable US dollar.
“Great leaders do not fear the future. America could win the future by embracing Bitcoin as hard money that can be used to stabilize USD and undo the tailspin begun in 1971.”
In 1971, President Nixon entirely abolished the gold standard, putting the US money supply under the Federal Government’s control. Since then, inflation has been a far more prevalent problem, and savings rates across the Western world have massively declined. Bitcoin is often promoted as a solution to this problem due to its absolutely fixed and non-manipulable monetary policy.
The senator’s advocacy for progress is a direct jab at Clinton’s branding as a politician. Running against Donald Trump in the 2016 US election, the former first lady became an emblem of ‘establishment’ politics – which Bitcoiners generally despise. That said, Trump has proven equally fearful on the subject of crypto.
It’s unclear what Lummis has in mind when she calls for Bitcoin “stabilizing” the US dollar. She may mean that Bitcoin could “back” US dollar value, like how gold did pre-1971. Alternatively, she might simply mean that Bitcoin will force the US dollar to compete as a store of value by reducing inflation.
Either way, Lummis unflinchingly refers to Bitcoin as “money,” rather than just an “asset.” She’s shown fervent devotion to the cryptocurrency for this reason before, even thanking God for its existence in speech to congress. Like many Bitcoin maximalists, she’s also been critical of other cryptos and meme coins, like Shiba Inu.
