- Gabor Gurbacs, recently made a shocking statement about the fake approval post by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- Gurbacs, in a post on X, highlighted the fake post as a strategy by the SEC to delay the approval of the Spot Bitcoin ETF.
- X’s Security section clarified the issue, stating that the SEC account was indeed compromised.
The scandal of the fake Spot Bitcoin ETF approval on January 9 caught the attention of the crypto market: Is the SEC to blame?
Gurbacs Points at SEC for Fake News
Gabor Gurbacs, the Strategy Advisor of Bitcoin ETF applicant VanEck, recently made a shocking statement about the fake approval post by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He labeled the incident as “inside job” due to the discrepancies revealed after the event. Several other crypto critics also support this claim.
Gurbacs, in a post on X, highlighted the fake post as a strategy by the SEC to delay the approval of the Spot Bitcoin ETF. However, while stating that the incident should not affect the final date, the VanEck advisor also presented the possibility that the post could have been “prematurely published” because he believes the regulatory body will eventually approve Bitcoin ETFs.
In addition, in another post, it was considered suspicious that the entire incident was closed within a few minutes. Gurbacs wrote, “I am not a cybersecurity expert, but noticing a bad tweet from the org account, tweeting from the president’s account to correct it, then realizing how a social media account was hacked within a few minutes, and tweeting a response from the hacked account seems almost impossible.”
Also, BitQuant, a crypto analyst on X, mentioned that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler should have remained silent about the incident. The analyst stated that displaying how vulnerable they are to the world would not be helpful. Additionally, he added that this move would damage their reputations and emphasized that reputation is something that takes years to build and seconds to lose. He noted that regulators chose to sacrifice their reputation for “5 minutes of insider trading and profit.”
X Provides Clarity on the Matter
X’s Security section clarified the issue, stating that the SEC account was indeed compromised. The post stated: “This breach did not originate from any compromise in X’s systems but occurred because an unidentified individual gained control through a third party over a phone number associated with the @SECGov account.”
Furthermore, it was confirmed, “We can also confirm that two-factor authentication was not enabled on the account at the time it was compromised.” However, this raised more questions about why the SEC, responsible for protecting investors from potential fraudsters and regulating the crypto space, did not enable 2FA on their X account. Additionally, it appears suspicious that a third party could easily access the SEC’s X account-associated phone number.
