Lawyers, politicians have called for an SEC investigation on the Bitcoin ETF post

US attorneys and senators have asked Congress to investigate the US Securities and Exchange Commission after it falsely reported that the X (formerly Twitter) account was hacked and that it was a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Approved.

“Just as the SEC would demand accountability from a public company if it made such a massive market-matching mistake, Congress needs answers now for what happened. This is unacceptable,” US Sen. Bill Hagerty said in a Jan. 9 X post.

US Senator Cynthia Lammis also asked the SEC to provide some clarity on the events that led to the fake post.

Fraudulent ads can dominate markets, according to SEC social media. We need clarity on what happened.

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) January 9, 2024

Fox Business' Charles Gasparino said the SEC “should investigate itself” for market manipulation, according to securities lawyers.

BREAKING: Securities lawyers tell @FoxBusiness @SECGov should self-investigate for market manipulation after approving first spot BTC ETF after moving $BTC price up and down, then calling it fake That said, the SEC…

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) January 9, 2024

Bloomberg EFF analyst James Seifert suggested SEC Chairman Gary Gensler would be angry with the employee responsible for the security breach.

“Gary wants someone's head to roll for this. (Honestly, I wish I were him too).

Others, like investment manager Timothy Peterson of Cane Island Alternative Advisors, say the SEC's security breach is an incident of possible market manipulation, which is precisely what the commission is supposed to protect investors from.

“How can @SECGov protect hundreds of millions of investors when it can't even protect its own social media accounts,” Peterson said.

Today @SECGov showed what it does best: manipulate markets and hurt American investors.

— Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) January 9, 2024

“I'm not pointing fingers, but the negligence of one person at your company has screwed over some real investors,” U.S. Attorney James (Metallawman) Murphy wrote in a post against Gensler.

Bitcoin activist Laiah Halpern said the SEC's fake post was up for 20 minutes before it was taken down, and accumulated at least 4.4 million views in that time frame.

“It's a complete market manipulation,” Heilpern said.

Related: Spot Bitcoin ETF Income? Investors can see results from the SEC this week.

The SEC did not provide further details on how the X account was compromised, but denied that its employees were involved in publishing the unauthorized tweets.

Despite the news, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said he is looking for an official approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs between 4:00 and 5:00 PM ET (9:00 and 10:00 PM UTC) on January 10. .

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