X confirms SEC account breach, blames third party
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More news: Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has confirmed the Securities and Investments Commission account was breached before a post incorrectly claimed spot Bitcoin ETFs had been approved.
X noted there had been no fault in its systems, and that the SEC account did not have two-factor authentication activated.
Bitcoin's price spiked by almost 3% when the highly anticipated announcement was made on X, before whipsawing down almost 6% when the SEC corrected the breach. BTC has since recovered and is currently trading at around US$46,128 ($68,834), about 1.3% lower than immediately before the false announcement.
What they said: "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," X's safety account said in a post.
US SEC says it hasn't approved Bitcoin ETFs, X post was unauthorised
The news: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it has not yet approved spot Bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs), in a reversal of an "unauthorized" post from the regulator's official X account.
The post, which briefly sent the price of Bitcoin higher, was removed a short time later, and SEC Chair Gary Gensler posted on his own X account that the SEC's X account had been compromised.
The numbers: Earlier in the day, Bloomberg reported that prospective spot Bitcoin ETF issuers had slashed their fees ahead of a highly anticipated SEC approval deadline on Wednesday. According to updated filings with the SEC, issuers Invesco (0.59% to 0.39%), Bitwise (0.24% to 0.20%), Valkyrie (0.80% to 0.49%) and WisdomTree (0.50% to 0.30%) lowered fees in their spot Bitcoin ETF applications. Both Invesco and Bitwise are also offering zero fees for the first six months or until the fund reaches a certain asset threshold.
The context: A decade after the first spot Bitcoin ETF application was filed, the US regulator is expected to make a decision on all applicants at once, igniting competition among issuers' fees.
