Bitcoin briefly fuelled following fake SEC X post

The market is eagerly waiting for an announcement by the SEC on whether spot Bitcoin ETFs will be approved. This led to an incident yesterday where the SEC's X account was accessed, and a fake comment was posted claiming that approval had been given. This fuelled a brief surge in Bitcoin's price, where it climbed to almost $48,000 per coin. However, the cryptocurrency dropped to $45,000 after it emerged that the post was fake.

A SEC spokesman said that "The SEC's @SECGov X/Twitter account has been compromised. The unauthorized tweet regarding Bitcoin ETFs was not made by the SEC or its staff" and that "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 pm ET. That unauthorized access has been terminated."

Social media company X said that, "Based on [its] 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," confirming that "the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised."

Several fund issuers, including BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, and VanEck, have submitted applications to launch ETFs holding spot Bitcoin. The SEC needs to respond to ARK Invest and 21Shares' application by Wednesday. Analysts predict the agency will likely approve several new fund applications on that day.