In what turns out to be an early April Fool’s joke for everyone involved, it appears that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has actually NOT approved any spot Bitcoin ETFs. Less than 30 minutes ago, a tweet from the SEC’s official X account (formerly known as Twitter) claimed the following:
however, the tweet in question has since been removed and refuted by Gary Gensler, chairman of the US SEC himself. According to Gensler it is
“The @SECGov TWitter’s account was compromised and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.”
Needless to say, the reactions changed quickly. Community sentiment quickly changed from euphoria and elation to a sense of disappointment. And yet, despite confirmation from the chairman himself, there are still people who refuse to believe what happened.
For example, in response to Gensler’s tweet, Bankless’ Ryan Sean Adams tweeted:
How do we know this account hasn’t been compromised?
— RYAN SΞAN ADAMS – rsa.eth (@RyanSAdams) January 9, 2024
All jokes aside, there could be other implications as well associated with this incident as well, with securities lawyers telling FOX Business:
“… the @SECGov will have to examine itself for market manipulation after moving the price $BTC up and down after the hacked tweet that it had approved the first spot BTC ETF and then said it was fake. That said, it would be unprecedented if the SEC did not approve tomorrow.”
Moreover, conspiracy theories are also circulating, with VanEck’s Gabor Gurbacs speculating that this could be an inside job. He speculated that one way “to stop or delay a Bitcoin ETF is to create an event like this.” A more rational explanation, as he himself admitted, is that the message was published earlier than intended. On the topic of this being an inside job, he continued add,
“It would be unreasonable to delay… and this event should change nothing IMO. But nothing surprises me anymore.”
The episode had another notable impact on the market:
😮 In shock for this #crypto investors, @GaryGensler claims that the @SECGov‘S #X account, stating that it was highly anticipated #ETF‘s have been approved, has been hacked. This has generated more than $300 million in revenue $BTC markets are liquidated. Almost 3 months, a similar inaccurate message
(Continued) 👇 pic.twitter.com/tLQzM1eXc9
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 9, 2024
At this time it is unclear who is responsible for this prank. At the time of writing, no details had been shared by Gensler, the SEC or any law enforcement agency.
What is clear, however, is that someone has exploited the sentiment of the crypto community as a whole.
