A social media account belonging to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been hacked. Fake posts were published to X, claiming that Bitcoin ETFs had been approved for trading on all national securities exchanges.

Included in one of the posts was a quote falsely attributed to SEC Chairperson Gary Gensler. In it, he praises the supposed approval as a way for people to trade within a "regulated framework more easily." That post was eventually deleted.

🚨#UPDATE: This is the unauthorized tweet from the SECGov account, which has been hacked and is still up at this time. pic.twitter.com/nonelLiAlm

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 9, 2024

The false posts from the SEC sent the Bitcoin market into turmoil, harming investors who had shorted Bitcoin initially as the cryptocurrency shot up in value. Once it became clear that the news was fake, Bitcoin dropped, harming a completely different group of investors.

This is so stupid.

The @SECGov X account gets hacked, falsely claims Bitcoin ETFs have been approved, Bitcoin surges, wiping out people who have used options to short Bitcoin.

Then the SEC announces the hack a few minutes later, reversing the claim, & Bitcoin falls, also wiping… https://t.co/u3b2BasmS2 pic.twitter.com/fJ3pNidoHO

— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) January 9, 2024

There has been no indication yet of who might have done the hacking, and because Bitcoin is untraceable, it will be practically impossible to figure out who benefited from the sudden shift in the market. That would be the most probable motive, i.e. that someone wanted to send Bitcoin soaring so they could sell out at a profit. 

Others have speculated that someone within the SEC could have been behind the posts, perhaps purposely trying to harm Bitcoin as an investment. The Biden administration and many within the Democratic Party have made it known that they do not want unregulated cryptocurrencies to continue. 

This is a developing story.