The SEC in the United States has created the first big oolong incident at the beginning of 2024.
In the early morning of January 10, Beijing time, the SEC posted on social media X, "Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing of Bitcoin ETFs on all registered national stock exchanges. Approved Bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing oversight and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection. 」
The news quickly made social media headlines after it was released. Well-known influencers on social media and well-known financial media quickly followed up and forwarded the reports one after another. It can be said that it shocked the entire $1.7 trillion crypto market.
But what no one expected was that the official release of the SEC in the United States was actually a fake news. SEC officials clarified on social media X that the SEC's X account had been compromised and an unauthorized post had been made. The U.S. SEC has not yet approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin ETF products.
Affected by this news, BTC briefly broke through $48,000 and quickly fell back to around $44,600. The 24-hour decline reached 1.81%. According to Coinglass data, in the past 24 hours, the entire network has liquidated $226 million, with long orders liquidated by $147 million, and short orders liquidated by $79.5279 million.
In the wake of the theft, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler was characterized as a stupid bureaucrat by cryptocurrency enthusiasts and Wall Street executives. Edward Snowden, a well-known national security leaker, wrote on social media: "God, Gary, you should cheer up," Snowden said in a subsequent post, "You only have one job." Snowden is wanted by the United States on espionage charges and now lives in Russia.
According to Fox Business News, in addition to the regulatory implications, this incident is also one of the most embarrassing incidents encountered by the SEC in recent years. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been gearing up for Wednesday's announcement of the approval of the Bitcoin "spot" ETF, a landmark event in the maturation of the $1.7 trillion cryptocurrency market. Once approved, the cryptocurrency will likely be available to millions of retail investors. For the first time in history, the ETF will track the daily price of Bitcoin, and for the first time in history, small investors can buy and trade ETF shares on major stock exchanges.
While the SEC claims to be the victim of the chaos, lawyers who practice securities law say the circumstances surrounding the false postings and the resulting Bitcoin upheaval should trigger the SEC's investigation into the commission.
Technically, Bitcoin is a commodity, and as such falls under the direct supervision of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. However, securities lawyers say the SEC has been blurring its remit in recent years, especially when it comes to cracking down on cryptocurrencies. Many people say that if the accounts of Wall Street or cryptocurrency companies had been hacked of this nature, SEC staff would have called for answers long ago.
In addition to the potential for market manipulation, the SEC in July passed new rules for so-called "cybersecurity risk management" for regulated entities. The rules will "require registrants to disclose significant cybersecurity incidents and important information about their cybersecurity risk management strategies and governance."
"They have to look into this because Bitcoin is moving so much, it's inevitable," a securities lawyer told Fox Business. Because the price of Bitcoin has changed significantly, registered broker transactions must submit documents to the commission. In addition, the SEC has violated its own cybersecurity rules. I've never seen anything like it.
The scam comes as investors are anticipating the SEC's decision on as many as 10 Bitcoin ETF applications, including BlackRock, Ark Investments, Grayscale and Wisdom Tree, among others.
Fox Business News said that cryptocurrency critics have long argued that the asset class is easily manipulated and used for illegal activities due to unregulated practices. For example, Dennis Kelleher, a former Senate senior staff critic, argues that if there are still people who believe that there are no speculators, predators, fraudsters and criminals in the Bitcoin market, they should be convinced by today's market manipulation and fake @SECGov "approved" tweets, and that $22 billion in market movements = a lot of ill-gotten gains, although they don't know the facts.
U.S. SEC response
U.S. Securities Commission Chairman Gary Gensler responded to the fake news. He said the SEC Twitter account was compromised and unauthorized tweets were posted. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin ETF products.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it would cooperate with law enforcement to investigate the hack, and the agency also said that an "unknown party" had access to the SEC's X account, that unauthorized access had been terminated, and that Platform X also said it was investigating the cause of the theft of the SEC account.
The mistakes made by the SEC account in the United States due to the theft also made it a target on social media.
U.S. Congressman Senator Bill Hagerty responded to Gary Gensler on social media that just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would hold a public company accountable for the huge mistakes it made that affected the market, Congress needs to provide an explanation for what happened. This is unacceptable.
There is also crypto artist Billy Restey, who inscribed the tweet "Gary Gensler responds to spot ETF approval as false news" as an Ordinals NFT archive. "This tweet has been recorded on the Bitcoin chain and none of us will ever forget it," he said. 」
There was a false alarm in the crypto market.
Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg who has been following Bitcoin spot ETFs from beginning to end, said in a post on the X platform that the SEC is expected to announce the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs from 16:00 to 17:00 ET on Wednesday (5:00 to 6:00 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday), and will launch on Thursday local time.
Approval is still available
Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg who has been following Bitcoin spot ETFs from start to finish, said that while there are clues that the SEC's official tweet was hacked, I am more inclined to believe that the "SEC passed" misinformation came from within the SEC, or that "an SEC employee prepared a planned tweet but entered the wrong date".
He believes that it makes perfect sense for the tweet to be released this time tomorrow. It seems to me that the wording of this tweet sounds like the SEC's legitimate wording style, rather than a fool playing pranks, and I think we'll see.
Analysts at Standard Chartered Bank have recently predicted that if the SEC approves a Bitcoin spot ETF, inflows could exceed $1 billion in the next three months and $100 billion by the end of the year. Standard Chartered also predicted that Bitcoin would rise to $100,000 by the end of the year.
According to a precious metals analyst at Standard Chartered Bank's New York branch, the price of gold ETP holdings to maturity rose 4.3 times within seven to eight years after the launch of the gold ETP, the report said.
Standard Chartered expects bitcoin price increases to follow a similar trajectory after the approval of the US bitcoin spot ETF, but Standard Chartered expects bitcoin gains to be realized in a shorter period of time (one to two years) as the bitcoin ETF market is moving faster.
Standard Chartered said that if ETF-related inflows materialize as we expect, we think Bitcoin could approach the $200,000 level by the end of 2025. By the end of 2024, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs will hold between 437,000 and 1.32 million new bitcoins. In dollar terms, this equates to about $50 billion to $100 billion.