The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently faced a major cybersecurity incident amid expectations for its decision on approving a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Bloomberg reported that a fake post, purporting to be a positive SEC decision, emerged from a compromised account on social network X.
The SEC confirmed that on Tuesday, January 9, the @SECGov account on X experienced unauthorized activity. An unknown party accessed the account briefly after 4:00 p.m. ET.
Following the removal of the fake post, Joe Benarroch, Head of Business Operations at X (formerly known as Twitter), assured that the account was secure. He revealed that the preliminary investigation identified an unauthorized individual who had compromised the SEC account. This breach occurred due to the control over the associated phone number, which lacked two-factor authentication at the time.
This false announcement led many to believe that the SEC had approved the listing of the Bitcoin ETF. Consequently, Bitcoin’s value surged by approximately a thousand dollars, from around $46,730 to nearly $48,000. However, once the news was debunked as fake, its value dropped to about $45,200.
Coinbase Expands in France, SEC Freezes Unauthorized Access
The SEC has pledged cooperation with investigative authorities concerning this incident and confirmed that it had halted the unauthorized access. Meanwhile, the crypto and investment communities continue to anticipate the SEC’s decision on listing bitcoin ETFs, expected by January 15.
In other news, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has achieved a significant milestone in France. The company confirmed on Thursday that it had secured registration with the French market regulator, paving the way for expansion in another key European market.
The French supervisory authority, AMF, has approved Coinbase as a virtual asset service provider (VASP). This registration enables Coinbase to offer various services in France, including custody of digital assets, buying or selling digital assets in a legal payment system, trading digital assets against other digital assets, and operating a digital asset trading platform.
