A recent tweet on the official account of United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on social media X stirred up the Bitcoin community.
On Tuesday afternoon, A post on official SEC X page announced the approval of Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs).
Shorty after the announcement was posted, SEC removed the tweet, and stated that the SEC’s X account was “compromised”, and that an unauthorized tweet falsely announced the approval of Spot Bitcoin ETFs, a decision eagerly anticipated by the Bitcoin community. This tweet was reportedly live for just under 30 minutes before being deleted.
Background
The SEC has been closely monitoring the development of Bitcoin ETFs for some time. These ETFs are considered a significant step towards mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin, allowing institutional investors to speculate on its price without directly having to handle private keys.
Fake News On SEC X Page: The Incident Timeline
The false tweet was posted on Tuesday afternoon. After roughly 15 minutes, Gary Gensler X account announced that the @SECgov X account has been compromised, and that the announced news is not true. It reportedly took SEC about half an hour to gain access back to its account and remove the post, and issue a note on the matter.
Market Reaction
The fake announcement had an immediate and noticeable impact on the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin’s price surged near $48,000 following the tweet but then fell to around $45,700 after the tweet was clarified as unauthorized and false.
SEC’s Response
SEC Chair Gary Gensler was quick to responded, clarifying that the SEC has not approved the listing and trading of Spot Bitcoin ETFs. The SEC also confirmed the hijacking of its Twitter account and reassured that the tweet was not made by the SEC or its staff. X also confirmed that the account was hacked and 2FA was not used on the account.
Ironically, Gary had been tweeting about the importance of 2FA earlier in October.
Bitcoiners were quick to point out the irony in it.
Implications
This incident has raised some serious questions about what happened.
Having the organization tasked with watching the markets investigate themselves for manipulating markets seems backwards. Hopefully the public can get some answers as to what happened. While it appears to be from a hack, this tweet from Shaquille offered a solid point into why Bitcoin is much needed in the digital age:
“The SEC’s market impact due to erroneously tweeting on the wrong date, followed by Gary’s attempt at a cover-up, perfectly illustrates human fallibility and underscores the need for a decentralized protocol.”
Conclusion
If the SEC can’t protect their own X account, it raises concerns about their ability to protect retail investors. Hopefully the SEC can learn about robust security measures for official social media accounts, like 2FA, that would help prevent future incidents like this. It’s remarkable to consider how much money can be made or lost based on a few tweets, highlighting the incredible speed at which information moves in our digital world.
