The “Approval of Bitcoin Spot ETF” false news released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) X platform account this morning has caused severe market turbulence and sparked a lot of speculation. X Security Department confirmed earlier that the official SEC account was hacked and the associated phone number was controlled by a third party.
(Table of Contents):
X Platform Confirms SEC Account Hacked
Is the Source of False News a Scheduled SEC Tweet?
Intern’s Mistaken Operation?
SEC Must Investigate Market Manipulation
The application for a Bitcoin Spot ETF and whether it can be approved this week has received high attention from the market. On this occasion, the official X platform account of the SEC suddenly released false news of “Approval of Bitcoin Spot ETF,” causing a sharp fluctuation in the price of Bitcoin. The community criticized the industry for being so strict with the cryptocurrency industry while having significant security vulnerabilities of its own.
False news tweet from the SEC.
Regarding this incident, the official Safety Twitter account of X’s security team tweeted at noon, confirming that the SEC account was maliciously infiltrated and that a preliminary investigation has been completed. The investigation showed that the intrusion was not due to any X system vulnerability but rather because an unverified individual controlled the phone number associated with the SEC account.
It is worth noting that Safety also stated that when the account was stolen, the SEC did not enable two-factor authentication (2FA), indicating a lack of sufficient security awareness. The X security team also encourages all users to activate this additional security protection.
Further reading:
Beware! Do not click on the phishing SMS “Binance Upgrade Certification” and how to set up Binance 2FA account protection?
Chain detective ZachXBT also tweeted immediately to remind SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to properly protect his financial accounts to prevent identity theft and fraud.
The SEC spokesperson told Blockworks:
However, despite the official certification by X that the SEC was hacked, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas conducted a public opinion poll on the X platform, asking, “Where do you think the approval tweet came from?” The poll found that as high as 82.3% of netizens believed the tweet came from within the SEC, while only 16.7% believed it originated from outside the SEC. He also stated:
Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and CEO of Skybridge Capital and former White House Communications Director, also questioned whether it was an intern’s mistake.
Crypto analyst Loma analyzed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s tweet word by word, pointing out that “Compromised” is not “hack” and “Unauthorized” is not “false.” This suggests that the SEC likely pre-edited the content for later release, but the staff or an intern mistakenly clicked on the publish button and is now unwilling to admit the mistake, thus blaming it on a hack.
Regarding this false news incident, FOX Business reporter Charles Gasparino stated that securities lawyers believe the SEC must investigate its alleged market manipulation behavior. If the SEC does not approve the ETF application within the next 10 days, it would be unprecedented because the SEC has never rejected an application that has reached this stage.
Related Reports
Bloomberg Analyst: Bitcoin Spot ETF Expected to be “Approved on the Morning of 1/11,” False SEC News Will Not Change Anything
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SEC Unannounced! Will “Skip the Vote” and Directly Approve Bitcoin Spot ETF Before 1/11?