Bitcoin and fake ETF approval: What really happened?

Yesterday, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission released information stating that Bitcoin ETFs had been approved. However, according to recent news, this announcement turns out to be false, even though it was disseminated on the official X account of the financial watchdog. Two hypotheses emerge: either the SEC’s account was hacked, or an employee within the agency made a blunder. Let’s take a closer look!

The SEC’s X account hacked?

Today is D-Day, the day the SEC’s verdict on the Bitcoin spot ETFs is proclaimed. Confident in its approach, BlackRock believes that its request will be approved by the US agency this Wednesday, January 10th.

Was the fake Bitcoin ETF approval tweet the result of a hack or a huge error by the SEC intern? Here's what the community thinks. https://t.co/6df9yDyD9y

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) January 9, 2024

It is now official, the SEC has not yet given its approval regarding the Spot ETFs on bitcoin. What the crypto community saw on its Twitter account on January 9th is merely the result of a hack of the American regulator’s account or an internal error, considering this Cointelegraph article.

However, we should also note that the SEC has denied any form of “unauthorized” publication by its officials. The account X hacking theory was spread by Gary Gensler. Indeed, well before the famous proclamation about the Bitcoin ETF, a tweet indicating “$BTC” was featured there.

The X team (formerly Twitter) has made the confirmation:

“We can confirm that the SEC’s account was compromised and we have conducted a preliminary investigation. From our investigation, the compromise was not due to a breach of X’s systems, but rather an unidentified individual who took control of a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party.“

A situation that did not fail to surprise the crypto community.