Last night, a "big oolong" incident occurred in the currency circle: the official X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was stolen. The account falsely claimed that it had approved the listing of the Bitcoin ETF. This caused the price of Bitcoin to surge for a while, but then fell back quickly after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler confirmed that the account had been stolen.
CoinGlass data shows that this "own error" incident caused more than $50 million in positions in the entire cryptocurrency market to be liquidated within an hour, and caused dissatisfaction among many "big guys" in the currency circle, calling for an investigation into this market manipulation.
The official social media account of the U.S. Securities and Futures Commission was stolen
The cause of the matter was that on the evening of January 9th, Eastern Time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a notice on its official social media account on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that it had approved the listing of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
This post stated in a serious way:
“Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing of Bitcoin ETFs in all states in which they are registered. Bitcoin ETFs that are approved will be subject to ongoing regulatory and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection.”
The tweet also included a photo of SEC Chairman Gensler and wrote next to it, imitating Gensler’s tone: “Today’s approval enhances market transparency and provides investors with the opportunity to effectively access digital asset investments within a regulated framework.”
But strangely, this post does not have any link to the SEC website. This is inconsistent with the consistent practice of official agencies such as the SEC, because such official agencies usually include links to official websites in messages posted on social media.
Subsequently, the messages on this X account were immediately deleted. Moments later, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler posted on his personal account that the agency's official account had been "compromised and an unauthorized tweet was posted."
He also clarified: “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded products.”
The SEC’s official
Although the SEC’s false post was only published for a few minutes before being deleted, it still managed to trigger a sharp increase in the price of Bitcoin, taking it from around $46,746 to $47,863. After Gensler's clarification, the price of Bitcoin fell back instantly. As of press time, it had fallen back to $46,122.
This huge fluctuation in the price of Bitcoin has caused dissatisfaction among many "big guys" in the currency circle, calling for an investigation into this market manipulation. Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss even bluntly said: "It would be great if @SECGov stopped manipulating the Bitcoin market."
Market pays close attention to fate of Bitcoin spot ETF
Whether the SEC approves a Bitcoin spot ETF is a topic of greatest concern to people in the currency circle, and it is also the news that has the greatest impact on the price of Bitcoin. This may be the main reason why hackers stole SEC accounts and published this false news.
After years of opposing a Bitcoin ETF, the SEC is expected to make a decision this week on whether to approve a Bitcoin ETF application.
More than a dozen asset managers have filed to create Bitcoin spot ETFs, with many filing their latest registration statements Tuesday morning ET.
At present, the outside world is generally optimistic that the SEC will announce the application for approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF on Wednesday Eastern Time. This is one of the reasons why the price of Bitcoin has been rising in recent months.
An SEC spokesperson told the media last week that any approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF would appear in the agency’s EDGAR database; the X was not used as a means of communicating a decision. He said:
"Any Committee 19b-4 order will be published on our website and then published in the Federal Register."
Perhaps because the time when the hacker released the false news was not Wednesday Eastern Time, which was generally expected by the market, and the release platform was not the official SEC website, this false news confused many market participants for a moment. But after the SEC's clarification, many market participants only interpreted it as a small unexpected episode.
21Shares co-founder and president Ophelia Snyder is looking to launch a Bitcoin ETF in partnership with ARK Investments. "I don't think it will affect the process or what's coming next," she said.
“The whole spot Bitcoin ETF story has been extremely unusual from the beginning, so from that perspective, this tweet makes sense,” Nate Geraci, president of consulting firm TheETFStore, lamented about the incident. “There have been a lot of surprising plot twists in the 10-plus-year effort to bring a spot Bitcoin ETF to market, and now this is added to the mix.”