Tuesday saw a small increase in Bitcoin following a tweet on the US markets regulator’s X account, which was formerly Twitter, indicating that new so-called exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the cryptocurrency had been approved.
Later, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that its account had been “compromised” and removed the message.
According to the social media site, there was no system breach that resulted in the account being compromised.
This week, US regulators are anticipated to release a statement regarding the new ETFs.
Shortly after 16:00 Washington time (21:00 GMT), the bogus post surfaced on the SEC’s official X account.
The Securities and Exchange Commission “grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”.
Business news sources and social media users quickly cited and reposted the post.
Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, quickly released a statement on his personal X account denying the false announcement: “A tweet was posted without authorization when the @SECGov Twitter account was breached. The listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products have not received approval from the SEC.”
“The SEC has determined that there was unauthorized access to and activity on the @SECGov x.com account by an unknown party for a brief period of time shortly after 4 p.m. ET,” a representative for the SEC told the BBC.
“That unauthorized access has been terminated,” they stated. “The SEC will work with law enforcement and our partners across government to investigate the matter and determine appropriate next steps relating to both the unauthorized access and any related misconduct.”
Later on Tuesday, X announced that it had finished its initial investigation into the fictitious post on the SEC’s account and discovered that it was not the result of a system breach on the social networking site.
“We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised, and we have completed a preliminary investigation,” X tweeted.
Bitcoin
“Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party,” it stated.
“We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised.”
Following the incorrect report, Bitcoin shot up to about $48,000 (£37,800) before tumbling back down to about $46,000.
This week, the SEC is likely to make an announcement about the possible approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, which is highly anticipated by investors.
It would be a significant turning point in the cryptocurrency market’s acceptance by traditional financial markets.
For SEC approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, a number of asset management companies have submitted applications.
ETFs are investment portfolios that let investors speculate on a variety of assets without having to purchase any of them directly.
Similar to shares, they are traded on stock exchanges, and their value is determined by the real-time performance of the entire portfolio.
While some ETFs already indirectly own Bitcoin, a spot Bitcoin ETF will buy the cryptocurrency “on the spot” throughout the day at the current price.
