The misleading message caused the price of bitcoin to skyrocket. Eric Council, a 25-year-old American, was arrested by the US federal police (FBI) on Thursday, October 17, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced. The man is suspected of having hacked the X account (formerly Twitter) of the US stock market watchdog (SEC), in which a false message was published in January that caused a jump in the value of the cryptocurrency.
In a press release, the DoJ explains that around January 9, Eric Council would have organized, together with other (unidentified) individuals, the acquisition of account X from the SEC. He would then have published, on behalf of the president of the organization, Gary Gensler, a message announcing the approval of the commercialization, then highly anticipated, of a new investment product in bitcoins, called ETF (Exchange Traded Fund).
Aggravated identity theft
As a result of this message, bitcoin, which is the most important digital currency in the world by its volume in circulation, had risen to almost 48,000 dollars (44,000 euros), the highest level in more than twenty-two months, before falling again quickly. . A few minutes after sending the criminal message, Mr. Gensler had warned, also in X, that the regulator’s account had been ” commitment “ and that “unauthorized tweet” had been published there.
If the SEC’s misleading message had such an impact, it is because the market had been speculating about the approval of ETFs for several weeks. These new products had to offer, for the first time, an investment that replicated the performance of bitcoin without investors having to directly own cryptoassets.
The SEC had repeatedly rejected applications to market similar products. But in October 2023, a federal appeals court in Washington confirmed that the SEC was not justified in rejecting these approvals. The official green light for this new investment product finally arrived the day after the publication of the false message, on January 10.
Eric Council is charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and device access fraud. He faces up to five years in prison.
