by Hannah Lang and Suzanne McGee
(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said an unidentified person briefly accessed its X account on Tuesday and posted a fake message claiming it had approved the launch of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) backed by bitcoin.
The SEC added that it had not yet approved the launch of bitcoin ETFs and that its account on X, formerly Twitter, was briefly compromised after around 9:00 p.m. GMT. The unauthorized access has been revoked, added the SEC, which will cooperate with law enforcement’s investigation into the hack.
X confirmed Tuesday that the SEC account had been compromised and said it was due to an “unidentified individual.”
The message published by the hacker announced that the SEC had approved the launch of bitcoin ETFs on American stock exchanges, while an official decision from the SEC to this effect was expected on Wednesday.
Two ETF managers say it’s unclear how the hack will impact the SEC’s timeline. The SEC is expected to issue a ruling on a joint bitcoin ETF proposal from Ark Investments and 21Shares on Wednesday.
As of 9:11 p.m. GMT, the hacker’s post had at least 1 million views. Less than 20 minutes later, it was no longer visible and appeared to have been deleted.
The price of bitcoin rose to around $48,000 when the fake message was published, before falling back below $45,000 a few minutes later. The cryptocurrency then fell 3.15% to $45,513 after the SEC denied the information. Some analysts expected bitcoin to fall if the SEC approved the launch of bitcoin ETFs, with the cryptocurrency gaining more than 70% in recent months in anticipation of such approval.
A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment.
(With contributions from Douglas Gillison, Chris Prentice, Laura Matthews, Noel Randewich and Shubham Kalia, written by Michelle Price; French version Corentin Chappron, edited by Kate Entringer)