The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said its account on social network X was ¡°compromised,¡± leading to a spike in the price of Bitcoin and raising fresh questions about X¡¯s reliability as a source of information and the strength of its security practices.
The incident, one of the most consequential breaches in years on the platform formerly known as Twitter, began with a post on the SEC¡¯s official verified account, which inaccurately shared that the regulator had approved spot-Bitcoin exchange-traded funds ¡ª a decision that had been anticipated for later this week. The price of Bitcoin quickly shot up more than 2.5% as news of the post spread online and via media outlets, including Bloomberg News, that were watching the SEC¡¯s feed for such an announcement.
Within minutes, SEC Chair Gary Gensler jumped in from his own X account to clarify that the SEC¡¯s post was inaccurate, even while the message remained up on X for roughly 30 minutes. ¡°The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted,¡± Gensler wrote on X. Bitcoin¡¯s price tumbled.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.