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The cryptocurrency market saw significant volatility following a misleading post on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) official X account. The post announced the approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), causing an immediate surge in Bitcoin’s value from $46,729 to a peak of $47,901.
However, the price rally was short-lived. Just 15 minutes later, SEC Chair Gary Gensler contradicted the announcement, clarifying that the commission had “not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.” The price of Bitcoin subsequently fell to around $44,701.
The unauthorized post included a photo and a fabricated quote attributed to Gensler. Later, X’s investigation revealed that the SEC’s account was comromised due to unauthorized access to a phone number linked to the @SECGov account and not a breach of X’s systems. The SEC’s account reportedly did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time of the breach.
