SEC says ‘compromised’ account to blame for tweet approving Bitcoin ETF

Price of bitcoin briefly spikes more than $1,000 as ETF would give a way to invest without having to buy outright on a crypto exchange

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Tuesday that a post sent from the agency’s account on the social platform Twitter/X announcing the approval of a long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded fund was “unauthorized”, and that the agency’s account had been “compromised”.

The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post on X claimed: “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.” Cryptocurrency investors had already driven bitcoin’s price above $46,000 in anticipation of the approval.