26 ms·

SEC has not approved Bitcoin ETFs [fixed]

102 points by pawelduda 3y ago

pawelduda 3y ago
From tweet: Today the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges. The approved Bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection.
- altairprime 3y ago
  (The above tweet was posted to the compromised account by an unauthorized third party, and has been denied as valid by the SEC.)
- qingcharles 3y ago
  The Tweet is now gone from the @SECGov account, which lends credence to the rumors it was hacked.
monero-xmr 3y ago
Widely believed Ethereum ETF coming in Q2. Will make it much easier to put 401k / IRA money in, and capitulation by SEC makes a Bitcoin and Ethereum ban in the US basically impossible.
- xur17 3y ago
  I'm curious if they will allow staked assets within the ETF.
- tossl568 3y ago
  You think they're going to approve an ETF for a premined unregistered security scam? Ethereum is to Bitcoin as dogshit is to gold.
  - wmf 3y ago
    Ethereum is kind of too big to fail at this point.
    - tossl568 3y ago
      No it isn't. It has two use cases, a stablecoin platform and a platform for token scams. It's losing market share all the time to other rubbish like Solana. Why would anyone in their right mind hold chuck-e-cheese arcade token Ethereum as actual money. Hint: they won't.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        You're basically describing Bitcoin in the same words. I despise Vitalik Buterin like nobody's business, but pissing down on Ethereum as a Bitcoin holder is too funny to not call out. Both of them are monopoly-money investments, with the L2 joke altcoins trailing close behind.
max_ 3y ago
What exactly will the ETFs holds? Bitcoin? Or Derivatives?
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  They're spot Bitcoin ETFs. So yes, Bitcoin.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > What exactly will the ETFs holds? Bitcoin? BlackRock said its Bitcoin ETF would be backed by actual Bitcoins in custody at Coinbase (a HN unicorn btw).
- altairprime 3y ago
  Nothing, as it isn’t an actual thing (see above).
CSMastermind 3y ago
As someone completely out of the loop what was preventing ETFs from including Bitcoin? Is there some regulation about what types of assets can or cannot be part of an ETF? Can I go make an ETF for magic the gathering cards? How about restaurant reservations or taylor swift tickets?
- wmf 3y ago
  Blatant market manipulation was preventing the ETFs. Then a court ruled that since the SEC mistakenly approved Bitcoin future ETFs they also have to double down and approve Bitcoin spot ETFs.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    Their Twitter account was compromised, no doubt in service of blatant market manipulation; they have not approved Bitcoin spot ETFs.
- andrewla 3y ago
  Each ETF needs to be approved by the SEC. You are welcome to submit an application for your restaurant reservations. Historically the SEC has refused these grants for Bitcoin ETFs on the basis that the underlying asset does not have well-established spot markets and credit mechanisms. See for example [1]. Greyscale finally sued the SEC for applying arbitrary and capricious standards, and prevailed in federal court. But even so the SEC has not approved spot bitcoin ETFs (that is, ETFs that "physically" hold Bitcoin) but had only given guidance for cash-settled Bitcoin tracking ETFs. That makes this announcement a very unexpected surprise. [1] https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf EDIT: And it does in fact appear that this is too good to be true. Looks like there was a brief spike up to $48k from the $46k baseline so somebody made out nicely on this little scam. Also goes to evidence that Bitcoin markets might be a bit too sensitive to manipulation to be suitable for inclusion in an ETF.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    This announcement is not valid, which may allay your surprise somewhat (see above).
rvz 3y ago
I don't think so. To Downvoters: The Twitter / X account of the SEC was compromised: [0] > The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. You all got manipulated very easily. [0] https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387
- qingcharles 3y ago
  And the @SECGov Tweet is gone now too, so looks like it was a hack... crazy.
dmitrygr 3y ago
How do I make sure that my 401k has zero exposure to this?
- ska 3y ago
  self direct?
- thejteam 3y ago
  Invest in a standard index fund (like S&P500, etc)
- altairprime 3y ago
  Do nothing, as it was a hack, not a legitimate SEC ruling.
- astura 3y ago
  Most 401ks let you choose the funds to invest in.
- tossl568 3y ago
  "How do I ensure I don't make any money from a flood of money pouring into an absolutely scarce digital asset" I'm sure your performative nocoinering will feel really good in a year when you're wrong yet again.
deleted 3y ago
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pants2 3y ago
> The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  Amazing.
- pawelduda 3y ago
  Lmao, can admins update the title to reflect this or remove the listing altogether? SEC twitter getting hacked is the last of scenarios I'd expect
  - altairprime 3y ago
    Yes, if you email them using the footer Contact link.
    - pawelduda 3y ago
      It's flagged so I think it's fine now
- zepton 3y ago
  Maybe @SECGov wasn't compromised, but instead @GaryGensler was?
  - wmf 3y ago
    The sec.gov site has no press release about the approval.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    I was thinking the same, but the @SECGov Tweet has now disappeared. What a hack if it's true!
paulpauper 3y ago
Btc crashing because this will probably lower the odds of approval. this is why tech stocks are so much better . no need to have to worry about these shenanigans. The SEC cannot approve when there is so much fraud. The fake news problem has gotten so bad on twitter. total shitshow. sub 30k soon on delay, imho
- wmf 3y ago
  You could absolutely manipulate tech stocks by hacking Twitter accounts. For example, you could hypothetically pump JNPR by 25% by leaking an upcoming acquisition.
  - paulpauper 3y ago
    I mean a diversified etf like QQQ, which was up 50% or TQQQ, up 150%. Why deal with individual stocks at all when the leveraged tech etfs have less risk and more upside.
ryandrake 3y ago
Why would someone buy this vs. just holding the Bitcoin? ETFs are interesting when 1. they bundle multiple securities together to diversify or 2. they are backed by an asset (like gold and barrels of oil) that is physically difficult for an individual to hold. Is this just for people who can't figure out how to open an account at a Bitcoin exchange?
- dageshi 3y ago
  Presumably the etf could be held in a variety of tax free accounts?
- staplers 3y ago
  Traditional IRAs can have ETF positions. This would allow pre-taxed earnings to purchase Bitcoin.
- andrewla 3y ago
  Holding equities through a brokerage and using their interfaces are a well-understood problem. Managing a bitcoin wallet requires a bit more effort (though hopefully not too much more). Even worse is managing KYC & identity verification through existing Bitcoin exchanges, and navigating the scams and frauds from the real spot markets, and being able to transfer money in and bitcoin out from those markets. Same reason gold ETFs are big -- people want exposure to the price of gold, but managing physical gold requires effort that many are not willing to put forth. On a systemic side, ETFs have a number of advantages; notably a credit market (share borrow, etc.) which can lead to effective shorting of the price of the underlying, something that is difficult to pull off without getting suckered in by the next FTX. Plus inclusion in other ETFs, inclusion in various retirement schemes, and generally the wide availability of liquidity in equity markets.
- jekrb 3y ago
  Two reasons. 1. Low fees. I think five of the ETF filers even have 0% fees for first 6-12 months. Compare this to Coinbase, where the fees will seem astronomical in comparison (maybe this drives Coinbase fees down.) 2. There is a non-zero number of people in the family office investing world that don't want to deal with learning new tech and just want to call up their stock person on the phone to buy them something.
wslh 3y ago
https://archive.is/XQCRk https://archive.is/XQCRk
wslh 3y ago
How SEC would protect investors if they are hacked with a supply chain attack!
deleted 3y ago
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paulpauper 3y ago
Yeah this is really bad for BTC longs. now it will probably be delayed. it's obvious that there is too much fraud and manipulation.. The SEC cannot in good conscious allow an ETF to protect investors (yes, ETFs which have lost all value like UVXY have been approved). Whoever did this furcked over wall street and these funds. Wow. never a dull moment.
- tomcik 3y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fullshark 3y ago
  I think an ETF is inevitable do you not?
  - paulpauper 3y ago
    all of the hype is over approval this week. approval eventually could mean 2025 or later .
    - cempaka 3y ago
      I mean, I know it's the SEC and all, but did they really not have their account locked down with all kinds of fail-safes to prevent something exactly like this? One is tempted to speculate about an inside job to sabotage an approval they never wanted to grant in the first place. On the other hand, it is the SEC ....
- enlyth 3y ago
  You don't seem to understand the purpose of UVXY. It's not meant to be held for longer periods of time, it's a financial product for traders to make short term volatility plays.
  - 3y ago
infotainment 3y ago
I love watching crypto people obsess about the fabled Bitcoin ETF. You'd think it was some kind of religious movement. "Oh glorious SEC, once thou bestowest thine blessing, Crypto shall rise a thousandfold! Glory to Bitcoin!"
- zaphod420 3y ago
  Crypto people are more like: "Honey badger don't give a fuck. Not your keys, not your coins."
- mamonster 3y ago
  Reminds me a bit of how whenever a stock starts getting rumors of being included in an index there are HF guys bidding it up to dump on the index ETFs.
- viraptor 3y ago
  More approved use means more standard financial industry products using BTC, means more overall volume/value in BTC, means higher price. Of course people holding BTC will like that.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    >Of course people holding BTC will like that. Given that the original Whitepaper is titled: "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" and a news article describing the 2009 bank bailout is literally baked into the very first block people celebrating slow morphing of Bitcoin into a traditional finance product is at least a little bit funny. Instead of a hedge crypto is now just effectively a correlate of the financial markets.
    - dogman144 3y ago
      Conversely, traditional finance making products based on an asset which some of the most radical anarchocapitalists hold market-moving amounts of, bodes well.
      - 3y ago
renewiltord 3y ago
Original Post: https://twitter.com/garygensler/status/1744833049064288387?s=46 https://twitter.com/garygensler/status/1744833049064288387?s...
dcolkitt 3y ago
The price of BTC initially jumped 3% on the hacked tweet. That's $25bn+ of market cap. The irony is the SEC itself is probably now responsible for the largest crypto pump and dump in history.
- mulmen 3y ago
  How is the SEC responsible for fraud committed on Twitter?
  - lxgr 3y ago
    By using Twitter as a communications channel for official announcements, they are at least legitimizing it. If they have any reason to be concerned about the security of their account (and it looks like they should have at least from now on), they should arguably reconsider their choice of platform.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Do they make official announcements on Twitter? They have an account but what do they use it for?
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    Because it's their account?
    - riversflow 3y ago
      Fraud is the fault of the one being impersonated now?
      - photonthug 3y ago
        For people who are victims of identity theft, of course not, but for organizations or governments? Yes, clearly yes. Let's make sure that the burden of securing operations generally stays with, you know, the folks that have staff and budgets.
nprateem 3y ago
POW crypto should be globally banned on ecological grounds.
- krunck 3y ago
  Then so should GPU powered generative AI. Just kidding. Just because you do not derive utility from something does not mean it a waste and should be banned.
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    Who derives utility from the PoW component of PoW crypto? Is the work doing something useful to you? Is the utility "I feel good about using electricity to do nothing"?
    - Zaskoda 3y ago
      yes it's doing something useful - securing the network and ensuring consensus
      - kevingadd 3y ago
        It's already been proven that you can secure a network without wasting massive amounts of electricity
        Zaskoda 3y ago
        has it though? I'm not sure which of the many consensus protocols you may have in mind, but proof of stake is the most popular alternative. A 51% attack for PoW requires that someone can afford to power 51% of the network. That's expensive. Once the attack is detected, the community can fork away from the moment of the attack. A 51% attack for PoS requires that someone owns 51% of the tokens. At that point, the attack costs nothing. If the attack is detected and the community forks, the attacker still has enough tokens to attack again on the new network - at no cost. All of this stuff is brand new. Saying that any of it is "proven" is pretty bold.
dageshi 3y ago
I am glad to see the cyberpunk future of hackers impersonating government agencies in order to pump and dump digital currency has finally arrived.
- thewanderer1983 3y ago
  Unlike the long history of price manipulation in traditional markets?
  - phailhaus 3y ago
    Yes.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Unlike conventional science fiction.
  - IKantRead 3y ago
    The old crypto chants were that crypto would lead us away from the ills of traditional markets/finance. Glad to see that it's been watered down to "just as bad as" arguments.
    - f-securus 3y ago
      Greed will, uhhhhh, find a way.
    - xvector 3y ago
      Tomorrow your bank could cut you off from your own money because you protested the government[1], and what could you possibly do? Having the freedom to truly own your own money and investments is valuable in and of itself, no matter how much crypto "devolves" towards traditional finance in other regards. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-protest-finances.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-pro...
      - RiverStone 3y ago
qingcharles 3y ago
> The @SECGov X account was compromised, and an unauthorized post was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744837121406349714 https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744837121406349714
- dang 3y ago
  Thanks! Submitted title was "SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs" (which I assume was reasonable at the time of submission). We've changed it now. Edit: since the original tweet (https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744829327294837236 https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744829327294837236) no longer exists, I've changed the URL to your link above.
deleted 3y ago
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traeregan 3y ago
This is so wild. Assuming it was financially motivated, wouldn't the involved party stand to benefit more by shorting and posting that the ETF was denied?
- paulpauper 3y ago
  no, because they make money on both ways: on the pump and then shorting. The account being hacked lowers odds of approval.
  - paulgb 3y ago
    You could still make money on the way down and then the way back up. And you’d probably move the market more than the ~3% that it was moved because the market consensus already gives a high probability to an approval this month. I get your point that it may not rebound quite as much because the hack itself lowers the odds of approval, but imagine the optics of Gary Gensler saying “it's not true that we denied the ETFs” -- bitcoin boosters would read that as a signal that it will be approved.
- fulladder 3y ago
  It could be a trader who was already long and looking to exit the position. Figured this was a good way to goose returns. Who knows?
- rhyperior 3y ago
  And that's why the most likely answer is that the message was queued to go out and sent prematurely.
  - traeregan 3y ago
    Perhaps. There were an odd couple of "likes" made by the SEC X account during the same time period though (they've since been "unliked"), and Chair Genlser + a follow up post by @SECGov both specifically say that the account was compromised.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
paulpauper 3y ago
The fact BTC is a lot lower means that the odds of approval have fallen. Manifold markets still giving 90% odds. https://manifold.markets/123Newsletter/will-a-spot-btc-etf-be-approved-by https://manifold.markets/123Newsletter/will-a-spot-btc-etf-b... this would be a good short but no liquidity
- josu 3y ago
  Here you go: https://polymarket.com/event/bitcoin-etf-approved-by-jan-15 https://polymarket.com/event/bitcoin-etf-approved-by-jan-15
SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
Well this certainly makes them seem more legitimate.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jakderrida 3y ago
I know making millions off crypto doesn't make me an authority, but... It's not an investment. I made money off people speculating by taking advantage solely off an inefficient market. There's nothing else to it. Money put in is not used to generate more wealth. Whether it's going to be used as an official currency in the future in no way would make an investment, nor would it mean it should even go up an value.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  This is half a joke, but maybe there is demand for a vehicle for speculation that isn't tied to anything real, at all. It achieves some sort of purity of concept. Plenty of people _gamble_ on the stock market but there has always been some sort of link to reality. With crypto, you can cut that tether and really treat it like gambling, rigged odds and all.
  - jakderrida 3y ago
    > but maybe there is demand for a vehicle for speculation that isn't tied to anything real, at all. I'll go with completely agreeing with this statement, the way it's written. Let's be honest...There's nothing semantically or generally wrong with it to argue against. As far as the "gambling" part... My objection would be that speculative vehicles aren't really on the "stock market" as much as they are the "derivatives market", if anything. Problem here is that the derivatives are, by definition, tied to the value of something else that could be called an investment. I'm not opposed to people trading. I made my money with market making algorithms and will make more as people keep trading. I'm just saying that classifying it as an "investment" poses quite a few issues for the SEC in terms of regulating it. Introducing it into an ETF that does nothing but hold crypto will be viewed by the public (that doesn't understand what crypto is) into presenting it as an investment. There are issues with that.
  - wmf 3y ago
    There is absolutely demand for that, especially when you add in artificial scarcity.
paxys 3y ago
Is this fabled Bitcoin ETF really going to be the "to the moon" moment that everyone in the ecosystem seems to be expecting? From personal experience, I can't think of anyone who wants to buy Bitcoin but hasn't been able to by now. It takes a few clicks on Coinbase/Robinhood or a similar exchange. Plenty of 401k/IRA managers (including Fidelity) offer it as an option. So what exactly changes once this ETF is live?
- paulpauper 3y ago
  Right, at this point, exposure to bitcoin is easy . this is not 2012 anymore.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  I'd expect some upward pressure on price because the ETFs will own bitcoin. But to your larger, exaggerated ("everyone"), question: It'll make it easier to include bitcoin as a part of larger trades when it can be bought and sold and used as collateral like a regular stock. It'll be another tool used by professional traders. I don't think it'll be a world-changing event, and like you said, it's probably not going to increase aggregate demand as trading desks will shift out of complicated ownership structures to use the ETF instead.
- smeej 3y ago
  Being able to buy it in a run-of-the-mill tax advantaged account would be a very big deal. It's possible to do it now, but not easy.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Why is it not easy? Your fund manager has to click a button to enable it. You have to click a button to buy it. How will an ETF make it easier?
    - throw310822 3y ago
      I live in Europe. I don't have a fund manager and I have invested in stocks on a low cost trading platform. Now I also have an account on Coinbase, which is an entirely different beast- different security, different responsibilities. It feels much more like owning physical goods than investing. There is a friction that would undoubtedly be solved by bitcoin ETFs. There's hundred of millions of causal investors who prefer to simply treat btc as any other stock and don't want to bother with actual ownership of the asset in any form and don't want to have to deal with anything different from normal stocks. And lowering friction increases usage.
gumballindie 3y ago
I see, ai and crypto currencies pulling in all the good folks.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
I wonder if the fact that their account was hacked for this will influence their decision about whether to actually allow Bitcoin ETFs
cempaka 3y ago
From a Slack of market observers I frequent: "Right now, someone is explaining to the BlackRock board, 'you got rugged, it happens all the time in crypto.' "
- AustinDev 3y ago
  It'd be funny if it wasn't a $45k to $45.7k change for a +$700 delta.
  - cempaka 3y ago
    I have a hard time seeing the SEC not delaying until at least March after that fiasco (or even pushing back against the tweet itself if they were intending to approve anyway), but I guess tomorrow will tell the tale. It's fees BlackRock cares about, not the Bitcoin price.
    - AustinDev 3y ago
      If fees are all they care about they make money anyway. No idea how that constitutes them being Rugged.
      - cempaka 3y ago
        They don't make anything if the ETF doesn't get SEC approval.
- paulpauper 3y ago
  Blackrock is huge. This is a rounding error to it. The people who got rugged were retail who bought into the hype since October.
  - disruptalot 3y ago
    You may be misreading the effects - Bitcoin is trading above what it traded yesterday, and 50% higher than october.
scrlk 3y ago
> "Careful what you read on the internet. The best source of information about the SEC is the SEC." https://nitter.net/SECGov/status/1714020932509982771 https://nitter.net/SECGov/status/1714020932509982771 ...until the SEC's account gets hacked?
- 0x457 3y ago
  > Unless specifically indicated otherwise, social media content expresses the author's views only and not necessarily those of the Commission, other members of the Commission, or other staff. Content posted to social media is not a rule, regulation, or statement of the Commission, and the Commission has neither approved nor disapproved of such content. Retweets, follows, or likes by SEC social media accounts should not be construed as an endorsement of any individual, group, or entity by SEC staff or the Commission. Paid for by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC's twitter isn't SEC. What they mean is this: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases and even that should be verified across multiple outlets if you want to be sure.
  - hanniabu 3y ago
    > SEC's twitter isn't SEC. So whoever is using the account is committing fraud
    - 0x457 3y ago
      Did you read the SEC's official disclaimer about their social media account that I've conveniently copied and pasted here? I guess not.
      - hanniabu 3y ago
        They said to only believe what's on the official Twitter account
wnevets 3y ago
"this is good for bitcoin"
johnea 3y ago
This is exactly why official agencies should have their own mechanismm of public communication, and not rely on 3rd party corporate chat platforms... How the FED, SEC, and any government office thought having a faceplant or twit account was good idea is beyond me... Of course, those who throw themselves gushingly at every corporate slime to crawl out from under a rock will have a hard time understanding this opinion. That is also part of the problem...
- PlatinumBench 3y ago
  I wish these platforms that are used to distribute information had the option for important organizations to re-centralize their communication. Instead of a Twitter account that could be hacked, why not let the SEC post to a feed hosted by themselves that Twitter can poll against and post to Twitter for them? Then you get the benefits of centralization for dissemination of information but decentralization for security? Then these important accounts can invest as much as they want in their own security? It seems like the only benefit that Twitter actually gives vs the SEC just posting on their site is that centralization.
- chucknthem 3y ago
  How does it change things if they had their own communications platform and someone hacked that to send this message?
Hash-Basher 3y ago
Anybody else not buying the fact that they got hacked? Seems more like they fat fingered the tweet, we'll see tomorrow.
- deleted 3y ago
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60secs 3y ago
I'm sure Gensler will use this as another excuse of no BTC etf since digital security is hard.
givemeethekeys 3y ago
Is anyone else wondering what the password was?
- mike_d 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure Elon just as a "Tweet as this account" button by now.
cempaka 3y ago
Matthew C. Klein pointed out on Twitter: "the owner/operator of this website has a longstanding grudge against America's securities regulator."
- drzaiusapelord 3y ago
  Also this should be a massive warning to companies, non-profits, and governments who think "Sure, Elon is mismanaging this and platforming the worst people and making it a cult of personality, but its not that bad. We get to reach a lot of people, so its still good for us." Now they have to worry about whether Elon is in the mood to give your account proper security or if your password hash leaked "by accident" by a "junior dev." Or just the everyday incompetence of all personality-cult organizations. Elon went from being sued by the SEC to hosting its humiliation. Elon is chuckling it up right now. The problem with personality-led companies is that if you get on the bad side of that personality, then anything goes.
  - throwxj 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - roughly 3y ago
    Not just companies. Bureaucracies get a bad rap, but the idea that everyone needs to follow the same process for every case is pretty novel in human history.
  - 93po 3y ago
    This is some ridiculous level fear mongering
- mecsred 3y ago
  Are we seriously suggesting that the password was intentionally leaked? The crackback against twitter and Musk with even a shred of evidence would be devastating. The idea that anyone's creds would be intentionally leaked is unbelievable to me, much less the creds of a US govt institution.
deleted 3y ago
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josu 3y ago
Here is a tweet from one of the main ETF experts: @EricBalchunas "On TV right on talking about this.. and yes, I think someone prepped a planned tweet and put wrong date, bc the tweet would have made PERFECT sense tomorrow at this time. The language sounds legit SEC-ish IMO vs a crypto knucklehead pulling a prank but I guess we'll see.." https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744835562643595652 https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744835562643595652
- paulpauper 3y ago
  nope. this is 100% a hack. the sec would not make such a post using that picture. why would there be a picture of Gensler? that makes no sense. it would be a press release of some sort, maybe followed by a tweet. yup https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744841094997680477 https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744841094997680477 why would the SEC 'like' random accounts? hacked
  - josu 3y ago
    Yeah, you are right. They actually liked a couple of random tweets too. Most likely hacked.
snailmailman 3y ago
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moose_man 3y ago
This is icing on the cake of this manipulated attempt to restart the crypto craze. These morons are so greedy that they undermine themselves.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Zaskoda 3y ago
  It's a cycle. It's going to restart. And then die. And then restart again. For a while.
- m25n 3y ago
  Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t buy Bitcoin because it’s going to crash: https://youtu.be/XbZ8zDpX2Mg?si=PyP8bPAOUftVyAcS https://youtu.be/XbZ8zDpX2Mg?si=PyP8bPAOUftVyAcS
moose_man 3y ago
Crypto schemers are trying so hard to restart crypto hype.
koolba 3y ago
The market manipulation and legal drama for crypto is truly the most entertaining thing in finance. The only sure bet are popcorn futures.
deleted 3y ago
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- EasyMark 3y ago
  [dead]
neilv 3y ago
Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? Those are for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable mob behavior, and astroturfing. The SEC doesn't need brand promotion, nor to be caught up in nastiness like pervades X/Twitter. The SEC already has the authority, they do their job with it, and presumably they value respectability. Earlier Web showed us how to do this right, before commercial entities steered the influx of the newbie masses back towards being captive to proprietary walled gardens. Stop choosing proprietary walled gardens to endorse with the government seal of approval. Put press releases on your .gov open-systems Web site. Optionally do supplementary alerts with an open-systems email announcements list and/or Atom feed. Let journalists, citizens, and lawmakers take it from there.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  There is value in government agencies engaging with people where they are. Even the SEC gets some value out of promoting their activities, even if it's just awareness of their existence and function and corresponding public support. That said, now that the Fediverse exists, ideally all of those government agencies would self-host their accounts, either individually or via a server for many different agencies of the same government. It makes sense for the SEC to be @sec@sec.gov or @sec@usa.gov rather than example.com/SECGov . (Which, of course, does not prevent them from having security issues.)
  - shp0ngle 3y ago
    SEC cannot run their own twitter account without being hacked, what makes you think they can securely run their own Mastodon instance?
    - JoshTriplett 3y ago
      I wouldn't expect the SEC to run it, I'd expect one of the government agencies responsible for IT infrastructure to run it.
    - cosmojg 3y ago
tamimio 3y ago
I have never looked at BTC as a quick trading rather a long investment, I still have many BTC since 2010 and never sold it.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Considering BTC was at around 10c in 2010 and you have many of them... You must have some of the steeliest nerves and self control the world has ever seen. At what point does a 46.19 MILLION per cent gain become insufficient?
  - drbacon 3y ago
    You should also add on the forked coins' values that tamimio owns.
    - ionwake 3y ago
      Good point, but arent there only like 2 forked coins with any value? BCH and bitcoin gold? I think thats it.
      - drbacon 3y ago
        Even Bitcoin SV is at $90 per coin, for a 90 thousand percent gain. $1,111 of Bitcoin in 2010, would net you $1M today in Bitcoin SV alone, even if you gave away your Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Cash.
        ionwake 3y ago
        I like your vibe but basically no one bought bitcoin back in 2010
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    There was a wallet came alive a few weeks ago that had been dormant since 2010 and moved $125m out. I'd love to know the story.
Ajay-p 3y ago
Reminds me of when Eli Lilly's Twitter was hacked to falsely proclaim free insulin.
- _blz2 3y ago
  it wasn't hacked I think, more like another blue check account impersonating it tweeted that out. This is the official account @SECGov tweeting out fake news.
paulpauper 3y ago
Never a dull moment with crypto. This may compel the SEC to delay. This is why you don't chase fomo.
romanixromanix 3y ago
Market manipulation by SEC itself?! So strange.
EasyMark 3y ago
[dead]
standeven 3y ago
Isn’t approval expected and already priced in? The hackers should have announced it wasn’t approved, maybe then the price would have moved more than 3%.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
rpz 3y ago
Has anybody else poked around in a bitcoin blockchain block explorer recently to look at the individual transactions of a block? Honestly I find it kind of suspicious but I could easily be missing something. I see multiple transactions spend more on fees than the amount exchanged in the transaction. A number of transactions looked enormous but turned out to be some form of washing. E.g address X sends $100MM worth of bitcoin to two addresses, with ~$1k going to address Y and the rest going right back to address X. What’s the point? Why not just send $1k to address Y. I originally started looking around to get a sense for how much bitcoin is being transacted relative to the block reward. As the halvings continue I can’t imagine how miners can profit without exorbitant transaction fees. Many of the transaction fees in the block I looked at were comparable to wire transfer fees. Why would anybody want to use bitcoin outside of speculation after nearly all 21mm bitcoin are mined? Why would anybody want to continue mining as well?
- PretzelPirate 3y ago
  Are you sure you aren't just misunderstanding how the UTXO model works? If you are a miner and you are rewarded with 1 BTC and you decide to send someone 0.5 BTC, your transaction will send 0.5 BTC to one address and send 0.5 BTC back to yourself. You then end up with UTXOs that are each made up of a different amount of BTC and you keep grouping them in transactions and sending the leftovers back to yourself.
- dekz 3y ago
  Perhaps a good starting point is spending a few minutes investigating how bitcoin works, perhaps with ChatGPT as a resource. You should attempt to understand it before forming an opinion and asking leading questions. Bitcoin uses a UTXO model, a recipient address is specified for the remaining funds that are not intended to be spent. Similar to how you pay for a $20 item with a $50 note, you (recipient) receive $30 in change.
  - beepboopboop 3y ago
    This is really weird. Why would a digital transfer do this? I could understand if it was dividing up a single bitcoin, but why would it require sending all the Bitcoin? To fix your example, it’d be more like paying for a $20 item with $100MM worth of $50 notes, and receiving $100MM-20 in change.
yieldcrv 3y ago
far more likely that those amateurs at the SEC were trying to schedule a post and accidentally pressed send Gensler freaked out and said it was compromised if you’ve ever worked in government this would be your first assumption
- rstuart4133 3y ago
  Bing, bing, bing, we have a winner. An upvote to you sir, for being right.
crtified 3y ago
The SEC should never have put itself in the position where it was vulnerable to this type of online impersonation. This seems less about crypto - after all, crypto will crypto - and more about "why the heck did the SEC normalise Twitter as a communications outlet!?".
- edgyquant 3y ago
  I don’t believe it was the SEC who normalized Twitter as the default communications platform. It was the public and the media who did that and the SEC followed
CryptoGirl 3y ago
Market manipulation by Twitter hacking..some speculate a delay in approvals now..ugh .who knows anything anymore, at this point?
HumblyTossed 3y ago
Regarding the SEC: how much help did the “hackers” get from inside X?
mikhael28 3y ago
Never stop gambling.
MCUmaster 3y ago
Hey did they fix segwit yet? It’s been like 5 years…
lulznews 3y ago
Excited for the next bubble of crypto scams. After shitcoins we got NFTs. What’s next?
- pants2 3y ago
  Ordinals and restaking
ckbishop 3y ago
"Hacked" Feels like something Elon would orchestrate for the purposes of trolling the SEC.
lulznews 3y ago
Honestly it could be Gensler getting “hacked” to pnd for his Wall Street pals. Absolute clown show jail sentences all around.
rafaelero 3y ago
I doubt they were hacked. If someone is smart enough to hack them, they would be smart enough to realize they would make more money if they released a note saying the ETF was rejected. My theory is that the SEC just posted it at the wrong time accidentally.
486sx33 3y ago
[dead]
moose_man 3y ago
They nerfed this thread =(
traeregan 3y ago
X's @Safety account just confirmed some details of the compromise: https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1744924042681897343 https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1744924042681897343 I'm surprised that the SEC wasn't using 2FA.
- WinstonSmith84 3y ago
  This organization is truly appealing, they have really no understanding of tech.. In fact, that tweet 2 months ago from Gary cannot be more ironical https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1716786621847392497 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1716786621847392497

102 points by pawelduda 3y ago

From tweet: Today the SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges. The approved Bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection.

altairprime 3y ago
(The above tweet was posted to the compromised account by an unauthorized third party, and has been denied as valid by the SEC.)
qingcharles 3y ago
The Tweet is now gone from the @SECGov account, which lends credence to the rumors it was hacked.

monero-xmr 3y ago

Widely believed Ethereum ETF coming in Q2. Will make it much easier to put 401k / IRA money in, and capitulation by SEC makes a Bitcoin and Ethereum ban in the US basically impossible.

xur17 3y ago
I'm curious if they will allow staked assets within the ETF.
tossl568 3y ago
You think they're going to approve an ETF for a premined unregistered security scam? Ethereum is to Bitcoin as dogshit is to gold.
- wmf 3y ago
  Ethereum is kind of too big to fail at this point.
  - tossl568 3y ago
    No it isn't. It has two use cases, a stablecoin platform and a platform for token scams. It's losing market share all the time to other rubbish like Solana. Why would anyone in their right mind hold chuck-e-cheese arcade token Ethereum as actual money. Hint: they won't.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      You're basically describing Bitcoin in the same words. I despise Vitalik Buterin like nobody's business, but pissing down on Ethereum as a Bitcoin holder is too funny to not call out. Both of them are monopoly-money investments, with the L2 joke altcoins trailing close behind.

max_ 3y ago

What exactly will the ETFs holds? Bitcoin? Or Derivatives?

trompetenaccoun 3y ago
They're spot Bitcoin ETFs. So yes, Bitcoin.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> What exactly will the ETFs holds? Bitcoin? BlackRock said its Bitcoin ETF would be backed by actual Bitcoins in custody at Coinbase (a HN unicorn btw).
altairprime 3y ago
Nothing, as it isn’t an actual thing (see above).

CSMastermind 3y ago

As someone completely out of the loop what was preventing ETFs from including Bitcoin? Is there some regulation about what types of assets can or cannot be part of an ETF? Can I go make an ETF for magic the gathering cards? How about restaurant reservations or taylor swift tickets?

wmf 3y ago
Blatant market manipulation was preventing the ETFs. Then a court ruled that since the SEC mistakenly approved Bitcoin future ETFs they also have to double down and approve Bitcoin spot ETFs.
- altairprime 3y ago
  Their Twitter account was compromised, no doubt in service of blatant market manipulation; they have not approved Bitcoin spot ETFs.
andrewla 3y ago
Each ETF needs to be approved by the SEC. You are welcome to submit an application for your restaurant reservations. Historically the SEC has refused these grants for Bitcoin ETFs on the basis that the underlying asset does not have well-established spot markets and credit mechanisms. See for example [1]. Greyscale finally sued the SEC for applying arbitrary and capricious standards, and prevailed in federal court. But even so the SEC has not approved spot bitcoin ETFs (that is, ETFs that "physically" hold Bitcoin) but had only given guidance for cash-settled Bitcoin tracking ETFs. That makes this announcement a very unexpected surprise. [1] https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf EDIT: And it does in fact appear that this is too good to be true. Looks like there was a brief spike up to $48k from the $46k baseline so somebody made out nicely on this little scam. Also goes to evidence that Bitcoin markets might be a bit too sensitive to manipulation to be suitable for inclusion in an ETF.
- altairprime 3y ago
  This announcement is not valid, which may allay your surprise somewhat (see above).

rvz 3y ago

I don't think so. To Downvoters: The Twitter / X account of the SEC was compromised: [0] > The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. You all got manipulated very easily. [0] https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387

qingcharles 3y ago
And the @SECGov Tweet is gone now too, so looks like it was a hack... crazy.

dmitrygr 3y ago

How do I make sure that my 401k has zero exposure to this?

ska 3y ago
self direct?
thejteam 3y ago
Invest in a standard index fund (like S&P500, etc)
altairprime 3y ago
Do nothing, as it was a hack, not a legitimate SEC ruling.
astura 3y ago
Most 401ks let you choose the funds to invest in.
tossl568 3y ago
"How do I ensure I don't make any money from a flood of money pouring into an absolutely scarce digital asset" I'm sure your performative nocoinering will feel really good in a year when you're wrong yet again.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pants2 3y ago

> The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1744833049064288387

trompetenaccoun 3y ago
Amazing.
pawelduda 3y ago
Lmao, can admins update the title to reflect this or remove the listing altogether? SEC twitter getting hacked is the last of scenarios I'd expect
- altairprime 3y ago
  Yes, if you email them using the footer Contact link.
  - pawelduda 3y ago
    It's flagged so I think it's fine now
zepton 3y ago
Maybe @SECGov wasn't compromised, but instead @GaryGensler was?
- wmf 3y ago
  The sec.gov site has no press release about the approval.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  I was thinking the same, but the @SECGov Tweet has now disappeared. What a hack if it's true!

paulpauper 3y ago

Btc crashing because this will probably lower the odds of approval. this is why tech stocks are so much better . no need to have to worry about these shenanigans. The SEC cannot approve when there is so much fraud. The fake news problem has gotten so bad on twitter. total shitshow. sub 30k soon on delay, imho

wmf 3y ago
You could absolutely manipulate tech stocks by hacking Twitter accounts. For example, you could hypothetically pump JNPR by 25% by leaking an upcoming acquisition.
- paulpauper 3y ago
  I mean a diversified etf like QQQ, which was up 50% or TQQQ, up 150%. Why deal with individual stocks at all when the leveraged tech etfs have less risk and more upside.

ryandrake 3y ago

Why would someone buy this vs. just holding the Bitcoin? ETFs are interesting when 1. they bundle multiple securities together to diversify or 2. they are backed by an asset (like gold and barrels of oil) that is physically difficult for an individual to hold. Is this just for people who can't figure out how to open an account at a Bitcoin exchange?

dageshi 3y ago
Presumably the etf could be held in a variety of tax free accounts?
staplers 3y ago
Traditional IRAs can have ETF positions. This would allow pre-taxed earnings to purchase Bitcoin.
andrewla 3y ago
Holding equities through a brokerage and using their interfaces are a well-understood problem. Managing a bitcoin wallet requires a bit more effort (though hopefully not too much more). Even worse is managing KYC & identity verification through existing Bitcoin exchanges, and navigating the scams and frauds from the real spot markets, and being able to transfer money in and bitcoin out from those markets. Same reason gold ETFs are big -- people want exposure to the price of gold, but managing physical gold requires effort that many are not willing to put forth. On a systemic side, ETFs have a number of advantages; notably a credit market (share borrow, etc.) which can lead to effective shorting of the price of the underlying, something that is difficult to pull off without getting suckered in by the next FTX. Plus inclusion in other ETFs, inclusion in various retirement schemes, and generally the wide availability of liquidity in equity markets.
jekrb 3y ago
Two reasons. 1. Low fees. I think five of the ETF filers even have 0% fees for first 6-12 months. Compare this to Coinbase, where the fees will seem astronomical in comparison (maybe this drives Coinbase fees down.) 2. There is a non-zero number of people in the family office investing world that don't want to deal with learning new tech and just want to call up their stock person on the phone to buy them something.

wslh 3y ago

https://archive.is/XQCRk https://archive.is/XQCRk

wslh 3y ago

How SEC would protect investors if they are hacked with a supply chain attack!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

paulpauper 3y ago

Yeah this is really bad for BTC longs. now it will probably be delayed. it's obvious that there is too much fraud and manipulation.. The SEC cannot in good conscious allow an ETF to protect investors (yes, ETFs which have lost all value like UVXY have been approved). Whoever did this furcked over wall street and these funds. Wow. never a dull moment.

tomcik 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fullshark 3y ago
I think an ETF is inevitable do you not?
- paulpauper 3y ago
  all of the hype is over approval this week. approval eventually could mean 2025 or later .
  - cempaka 3y ago
    I mean, I know it's the SEC and all, but did they really not have their account locked down with all kinds of fail-safes to prevent something exactly like this? One is tempted to speculate about an inside job to sabotage an approval they never wanted to grant in the first place. On the other hand, it is the SEC ....
enlyth 3y ago
You don't seem to understand the purpose of UVXY. It's not meant to be held for longer periods of time, it's a financial product for traders to make short term volatility plays.
- 3y ago

infotainment 3y ago

I love watching crypto people obsess about the fabled Bitcoin ETF. You'd think it was some kind of religious movement. "Oh glorious SEC, once thou bestowest thine blessing, Crypto shall rise a thousandfold! Glory to Bitcoin!"

zaphod420 3y ago
Crypto people are more like: "Honey badger don't give a fuck. Not your keys, not your coins."
mamonster 3y ago
Reminds me a bit of how whenever a stock starts getting rumors of being included in an index there are HF guys bidding it up to dump on the index ETFs.
viraptor 3y ago
More approved use means more standard financial industry products using BTC, means more overall volume/value in BTC, means higher price. Of course people holding BTC will like that.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  >Of course people holding BTC will like that. Given that the original Whitepaper is titled: "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" and a news article describing the 2009 bank bailout is literally baked into the very first block people celebrating slow morphing of Bitcoin into a traditional finance product is at least a little bit funny. Instead of a hedge crypto is now just effectively a correlate of the financial markets.
  - dogman144 3y ago
    Conversely, traditional finance making products based on an asset which some of the most radical anarchocapitalists hold market-moving amounts of, bodes well.
    - 3y ago

renewiltord 3y ago

Original Post: https://twitter.com/garygensler/status/1744833049064288387?s=46 https://twitter.com/garygensler/status/1744833049064288387?s...

dcolkitt 3y ago

The price of BTC initially jumped 3% on the hacked tweet. That's $25bn+ of market cap. The irony is the SEC itself is probably now responsible for the largest crypto pump and dump in history.

mulmen 3y ago
How is the SEC responsible for fraud committed on Twitter?
- lxgr 3y ago
  By using Twitter as a communications channel for official announcements, they are at least legitimizing it. If they have any reason to be concerned about the security of their account (and it looks like they should have at least from now on), they should arguably reconsider their choice of platform.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Do they make official announcements on Twitter? They have an account but what do they use it for?
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Because it's their account?
  - riversflow 3y ago
    Fraud is the fault of the one being impersonated now?
    - photonthug 3y ago
      For people who are victims of identity theft, of course not, but for organizations or governments? Yes, clearly yes. Let's make sure that the burden of securing operations generally stays with, you know, the folks that have staff and budgets.

nprateem 3y ago

POW crypto should be globally banned on ecological grounds.

krunck 3y ago
Then so should GPU powered generative AI. Just kidding. Just because you do not derive utility from something does not mean it a waste and should be banned.
- kevingadd 3y ago
  Who derives utility from the PoW component of PoW crypto? Is the work doing something useful to you? Is the utility "I feel good about using electricity to do nothing"?
  - Zaskoda 3y ago
    yes it's doing something useful - securing the network and ensuring consensus
    - kevingadd 3y ago
      It's already been proven that you can secure a network without wasting massive amounts of electricity
      - Zaskoda 3y ago
        has it though? I'm not sure which of the many consensus protocols you may have in mind, but proof of stake is the most popular alternative. A 51% attack for PoW requires that someone can afford to power 51% of the network. That's expensive. Once the attack is detected, the community can fork away from the moment of the attack. A 51% attack for PoS requires that someone owns 51% of the tokens. At that point, the attack costs nothing. If the attack is detected and the community forks, the attacker still has enough tokens to attack again on the new network - at no cost. All of this stuff is brand new. Saying that any of it is "proven" is pretty bold.

dageshi 3y ago

I am glad to see the cyberpunk future of hackers impersonating government agencies in order to pump and dump digital currency has finally arrived.

thewanderer1983 3y ago
Unlike the long history of price manipulation in traditional markets?
- phailhaus 3y ago
  Yes.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Unlike conventional science fiction.
- IKantRead 3y ago
  The old crypto chants were that crypto would lead us away from the ills of traditional markets/finance. Glad to see that it's been watered down to "just as bad as" arguments.
  - f-securus 3y ago
    Greed will, uhhhhh, find a way.
  - xvector 3y ago
    Tomorrow your bank could cut you off from your own money because you protested the government[1], and what could you possibly do? Having the freedom to truly own your own money and investments is valuable in and of itself, no matter how much crypto "devolves" towards traditional finance in other regards. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-protest-finances.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-pro...
    - RiverStone 3y ago

qingcharles 3y ago

> The @SECGov X account was compromised, and an unauthorized post was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products. https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744837121406349714 https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744837121406349714

dang 3y ago
Thanks! Submitted title was "SEC approves Bitcoin ETFs" (which I assume was reasonable at the time of submission). We've changed it now. Edit: since the original tweet (https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744829327294837236 https://twitter.com/SECGov/status/1744829327294837236) no longer exists, I've changed the URL to your link above.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

traeregan 3y ago

This is so wild. Assuming it was financially motivated, wouldn't the involved party stand to benefit more by shorting and posting that the ETF was denied?

paulpauper 3y ago
no, because they make money on both ways: on the pump and then shorting. The account being hacked lowers odds of approval.
- paulgb 3y ago
  You could still make money on the way down and then the way back up. And you’d probably move the market more than the ~3% that it was moved because the market consensus already gives a high probability to an approval this month. I get your point that it may not rebound quite as much because the hack itself lowers the odds of approval, but imagine the optics of Gary Gensler saying “it's not true that we denied the ETFs” -- bitcoin boosters would read that as a signal that it will be approved.
fulladder 3y ago
It could be a trader who was already long and looking to exit the position. Figured this was a good way to goose returns. Who knows?
rhyperior 3y ago
And that's why the most likely answer is that the message was queued to go out and sent prematurely.
- traeregan 3y ago
  Perhaps. There were an odd couple of "likes" made by the SEC X account during the same time period though (they've since been "unliked"), and Chair Genlser + a follow up post by @SECGov both specifically say that the account was compromised.
- qingcharles 3y ago

paulpauper 3y ago

The fact BTC is a lot lower means that the odds of approval have fallen. Manifold markets still giving 90% odds. https://manifold.markets/123Newsletter/will-a-spot-btc-etf-be-approved-by https://manifold.markets/123Newsletter/will-a-spot-btc-etf-b... this would be a good short but no liquidity

josu 3y ago
Here you go: https://polymarket.com/event/bitcoin-etf-approved-by-jan-15 https://polymarket.com/event/bitcoin-etf-approved-by-jan-15

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

Well this certainly makes them seem more legitimate.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jakderrida 3y ago

I know making millions off crypto doesn't make me an authority, but... It's not an investment. I made money off people speculating by taking advantage solely off an inefficient market. There's nothing else to it. Money put in is not used to generate more wealth. Whether it's going to be used as an official currency in the future in no way would make an investment, nor would it mean it should even go up an value.

droopyEyelids 3y ago
This is half a joke, but maybe there is demand for a vehicle for speculation that isn't tied to anything real, at all. It achieves some sort of purity of concept. Plenty of people _gamble_ on the stock market but there has always been some sort of link to reality. With crypto, you can cut that tether and really treat it like gambling, rigged odds and all.
- jakderrida 3y ago
  > but maybe there is demand for a vehicle for speculation that isn't tied to anything real, at all. I'll go with completely agreeing with this statement, the way it's written. Let's be honest...There's nothing semantically or generally wrong with it to argue against. As far as the "gambling" part... My objection would be that speculative vehicles aren't really on the "stock market" as much as they are the "derivatives market", if anything. Problem here is that the derivatives are, by definition, tied to the value of something else that could be called an investment. I'm not opposed to people trading. I made my money with market making algorithms and will make more as people keep trading. I'm just saying that classifying it as an "investment" poses quite a few issues for the SEC in terms of regulating it. Introducing it into an ETF that does nothing but hold crypto will be viewed by the public (that doesn't understand what crypto is) into presenting it as an investment. There are issues with that.
- wmf 3y ago
  There is absolutely demand for that, especially when you add in artificial scarcity.

paxys 3y ago

Is this fabled Bitcoin ETF really going to be the "to the moon" moment that everyone in the ecosystem seems to be expecting? From personal experience, I can't think of anyone who wants to buy Bitcoin but hasn't been able to by now. It takes a few clicks on Coinbase/Robinhood or a similar exchange. Plenty of 401k/IRA managers (including Fidelity) offer it as an option. So what exactly changes once this ETF is live?

paulpauper 3y ago
Right, at this point, exposure to bitcoin is easy . this is not 2012 anymore.
droopyEyelids 3y ago
I'd expect some upward pressure on price because the ETFs will own bitcoin. But to your larger, exaggerated ("everyone"), question: It'll make it easier to include bitcoin as a part of larger trades when it can be bought and sold and used as collateral like a regular stock. It'll be another tool used by professional traders. I don't think it'll be a world-changing event, and like you said, it's probably not going to increase aggregate demand as trading desks will shift out of complicated ownership structures to use the ETF instead.
smeej 3y ago
Being able to buy it in a run-of-the-mill tax advantaged account would be a very big deal. It's possible to do it now, but not easy.
- paxys 3y ago
  Why is it not easy? Your fund manager has to click a button to enable it. You have to click a button to buy it. How will an ETF make it easier?
  - throw310822 3y ago
    I live in Europe. I don't have a fund manager and I have invested in stocks on a low cost trading platform. Now I also have an account on Coinbase, which is an entirely different beast- different security, different responsibilities. It feels much more like owning physical goods than investing. There is a friction that would undoubtedly be solved by bitcoin ETFs. There's hundred of millions of causal investors who prefer to simply treat btc as any other stock and don't want to bother with actual ownership of the asset in any form and don't want to have to deal with anything different from normal stocks. And lowering friction increases usage.

gumballindie 3y ago

I see, ai and crypto currencies pulling in all the good folks.

droopyEyelids 3y ago

I wonder if the fact that their account was hacked for this will influence their decision about whether to actually allow Bitcoin ETFs

cempaka 3y ago

From a Slack of market observers I frequent: "Right now, someone is explaining to the BlackRock board, 'you got rugged, it happens all the time in crypto.' "

AustinDev 3y ago
It'd be funny if it wasn't a $45k to $45.7k change for a +$700 delta.
- cempaka 3y ago
  I have a hard time seeing the SEC not delaying until at least March after that fiasco (or even pushing back against the tweet itself if they were intending to approve anyway), but I guess tomorrow will tell the tale. It's fees BlackRock cares about, not the Bitcoin price.
  - AustinDev 3y ago
    If fees are all they care about they make money anyway. No idea how that constitutes them being Rugged.
    - cempaka 3y ago
      They don't make anything if the ETF doesn't get SEC approval.
paulpauper 3y ago
Blackrock is huge. This is a rounding error to it. The people who got rugged were retail who bought into the hype since October.
- disruptalot 3y ago
  You may be misreading the effects - Bitcoin is trading above what it traded yesterday, and 50% higher than october.

scrlk 3y ago

> "Careful what you read on the internet. The best source of information about the SEC is the SEC." https://nitter.net/SECGov/status/1714020932509982771 https://nitter.net/SECGov/status/1714020932509982771 ...until the SEC's account gets hacked?

0x457 3y ago
> Unless specifically indicated otherwise, social media content expresses the author's views only and not necessarily those of the Commission, other members of the Commission, or other staff. Content posted to social media is not a rule, regulation, or statement of the Commission, and the Commission has neither approved nor disapproved of such content. Retweets, follows, or likes by SEC social media accounts should not be construed as an endorsement of any individual, group, or entity by SEC staff or the Commission. Paid for by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC's twitter isn't SEC. What they mean is this: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases and even that should be verified across multiple outlets if you want to be sure.
- hanniabu 3y ago
  > SEC's twitter isn't SEC. So whoever is using the account is committing fraud
  - 0x457 3y ago
    Did you read the SEC's official disclaimer about their social media account that I've conveniently copied and pasted here? I guess not.
    - hanniabu 3y ago
      They said to only believe what's on the official Twitter account

wnevets 3y ago

"this is good for bitcoin"

johnea 3y ago

This is exactly why official agencies should have their own mechanismm of public communication, and not rely on 3rd party corporate chat platforms... How the FED, SEC, and any government office thought having a faceplant or twit account was good idea is beyond me... Of course, those who throw themselves gushingly at every corporate slime to crawl out from under a rock will have a hard time understanding this opinion. That is also part of the problem...

PlatinumBench 3y ago
I wish these platforms that are used to distribute information had the option for important organizations to re-centralize their communication. Instead of a Twitter account that could be hacked, why not let the SEC post to a feed hosted by themselves that Twitter can poll against and post to Twitter for them? Then you get the benefits of centralization for dissemination of information but decentralization for security? Then these important accounts can invest as much as they want in their own security? It seems like the only benefit that Twitter actually gives vs the SEC just posting on their site is that centralization.
chucknthem 3y ago
How does it change things if they had their own communications platform and someone hacked that to send this message?

Hash-Basher 3y ago

Anybody else not buying the fact that they got hacked? Seems more like they fat fingered the tweet, we'll see tomorrow.

deleted 3y ago
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60secs 3y ago

I'm sure Gensler will use this as another excuse of no BTC etf since digital security is hard.

givemeethekeys 3y ago

Is anyone else wondering what the password was?

mike_d 3y ago
I'm pretty sure Elon just as a "Tweet as this account" button by now.

cempaka 3y ago

Matthew C. Klein pointed out on Twitter: "the owner/operator of this website has a longstanding grudge against America's securities regulator."

drzaiusapelord 3y ago
Also this should be a massive warning to companies, non-profits, and governments who think "Sure, Elon is mismanaging this and platforming the worst people and making it a cult of personality, but its not that bad. We get to reach a lot of people, so its still good for us." Now they have to worry about whether Elon is in the mood to give your account proper security or if your password hash leaked "by accident" by a "junior dev." Or just the everyday incompetence of all personality-cult organizations. Elon went from being sued by the SEC to hosting its humiliation. Elon is chuckling it up right now. The problem with personality-led companies is that if you get on the bad side of that personality, then anything goes.
- throwxj 3y ago
  [flagged]
- roughly 3y ago
  Not just companies. Bureaucracies get a bad rap, but the idea that everyone needs to follow the same process for every case is pretty novel in human history.
- 93po 3y ago
  This is some ridiculous level fear mongering
mecsred 3y ago
Are we seriously suggesting that the password was intentionally leaked? The crackback against twitter and Musk with even a shred of evidence would be devastating. The idea that anyone's creds would be intentionally leaked is unbelievable to me, much less the creds of a US govt institution.

deleted 3y ago

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josu 3y ago

Here is a tweet from one of the main ETF experts: @EricBalchunas "On TV right on talking about this.. and yes, I think someone prepped a planned tweet and put wrong date, bc the tweet would have made PERFECT sense tomorrow at this time. The language sounds legit SEC-ish IMO vs a crypto knucklehead pulling a prank but I guess we'll see.." https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744835562643595652 https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744835562643595652

paulpauper 3y ago
nope. this is 100% a hack. the sec would not make such a post using that picture. why would there be a picture of Gensler? that makes no sense. it would be a press release of some sort, maybe followed by a tweet. yup https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744841094997680477 https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744841094997680477 why would the SEC 'like' random accounts? hacked
- josu 3y ago
  Yeah, you are right. They actually liked a couple of random tweets too. Most likely hacked.

snailmailman 3y ago

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moose_man 3y ago

This is icing on the cake of this manipulated attempt to restart the crypto craze. These morons are so greedy that they undermine themselves.

deleted 3y ago
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Zaskoda 3y ago
It's a cycle. It's going to restart. And then die. And then restart again. For a while.
m25n 3y ago
Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t buy Bitcoin because it’s going to crash: https://youtu.be/XbZ8zDpX2Mg?si=PyP8bPAOUftVyAcS https://youtu.be/XbZ8zDpX2Mg?si=PyP8bPAOUftVyAcS

moose_man 3y ago

Crypto schemers are trying so hard to restart crypto hype.

koolba 3y ago

The market manipulation and legal drama for crypto is truly the most entertaining thing in finance. The only sure bet are popcorn futures.

deleted 3y ago

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EasyMark 3y ago
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neilv 3y ago

Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? Those are for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable mob behavior, and astroturfing. The SEC doesn't need brand promotion, nor to be caught up in nastiness like pervades X/Twitter. The SEC already has the authority, they do their job with it, and presumably they value respectability. Earlier Web showed us how to do this right, before commercial entities steered the influx of the newbie masses back towards being captive to proprietary walled gardens. Stop choosing proprietary walled gardens to endorse with the government seal of approval. Put press releases on your .gov open-systems Web site. Optionally do supplementary alerts with an open-systems email announcements list and/or Atom feed. Let journalists, citizens, and lawmakers take it from there.

JoshTriplett 3y ago
There is value in government agencies engaging with people where they are. Even the SEC gets some value out of promoting their activities, even if it's just awareness of their existence and function and corresponding public support. That said, now that the Fediverse exists, ideally all of those government agencies would self-host their accounts, either individually or via a server for many different agencies of the same government. It makes sense for the SEC to be @sec@sec.gov or @sec@usa.gov rather than example.com/SECGov . (Which, of course, does not prevent them from having security issues.)
- shp0ngle 3y ago
  SEC cannot run their own twitter account without being hacked, what makes you think they can securely run their own Mastodon instance?
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    I wouldn't expect the SEC to run it, I'd expect one of the government agencies responsible for IT infrastructure to run it.
  - cosmojg 3y ago

tamimio 3y ago

I have never looked at BTC as a quick trading rather a long investment, I still have many BTC since 2010 and never sold it.

FireBeyond 3y ago
Considering BTC was at around 10c in 2010 and you have many of them... You must have some of the steeliest nerves and self control the world has ever seen. At what point does a 46.19 MILLION per cent gain become insufficient?
- drbacon 3y ago
  You should also add on the forked coins' values that tamimio owns.
  - ionwake 3y ago
    Good point, but arent there only like 2 forked coins with any value? BCH and bitcoin gold? I think thats it.
    - drbacon 3y ago
      Even Bitcoin SV is at $90 per coin, for a 90 thousand percent gain. $1,111 of Bitcoin in 2010, would net you $1M today in Bitcoin SV alone, even if you gave away your Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Cash.
      - ionwake 3y ago
        I like your vibe but basically no one bought bitcoin back in 2010
- qingcharles 3y ago
  There was a wallet came alive a few weeks ago that had been dormant since 2010 and moved $125m out. I'd love to know the story.

Ajay-p 3y ago

Reminds me of when Eli Lilly's Twitter was hacked to falsely proclaim free insulin.

_blz2 3y ago
it wasn't hacked I think, more like another blue check account impersonating it tweeted that out. This is the official account @SECGov tweeting out fake news.

paulpauper 3y ago

Never a dull moment with crypto. This may compel the SEC to delay. This is why you don't chase fomo.

romanixromanix 3y ago

Market manipulation by SEC itself?! So strange.

EasyMark 3y ago

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standeven 3y ago

Isn’t approval expected and already priced in? The hackers should have announced it wasn’t approved, maybe then the price would have moved more than 3%.

deleted 3y ago
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rpz 3y ago

Has anybody else poked around in a bitcoin blockchain block explorer recently to look at the individual transactions of a block? Honestly I find it kind of suspicious but I could easily be missing something. I see multiple transactions spend more on fees than the amount exchanged in the transaction. A number of transactions looked enormous but turned out to be some form of washing. E.g address X sends $100MM worth of bitcoin to two addresses, with ~$1k going to address Y and the rest going right back to address X. What’s the point? Why not just send $1k to address Y. I originally started looking around to get a sense for how much bitcoin is being transacted relative to the block reward. As the halvings continue I can’t imagine how miners can profit without exorbitant transaction fees. Many of the transaction fees in the block I looked at were comparable to wire transfer fees. Why would anybody want to use bitcoin outside of speculation after nearly all 21mm bitcoin are mined? Why would anybody want to continue mining as well?

PretzelPirate 3y ago
Are you sure you aren't just misunderstanding how the UTXO model works? If you are a miner and you are rewarded with 1 BTC and you decide to send someone 0.5 BTC, your transaction will send 0.5 BTC to one address and send 0.5 BTC back to yourself. You then end up with UTXOs that are each made up of a different amount of BTC and you keep grouping them in transactions and sending the leftovers back to yourself.
dekz 3y ago
Perhaps a good starting point is spending a few minutes investigating how bitcoin works, perhaps with ChatGPT as a resource. You should attempt to understand it before forming an opinion and asking leading questions. Bitcoin uses a UTXO model, a recipient address is specified for the remaining funds that are not intended to be spent. Similar to how you pay for a $20 item with a $50 note, you (recipient) receive $30 in change.
- beepboopboop 3y ago
  This is really weird. Why would a digital transfer do this? I could understand if it was dividing up a single bitcoin, but why would it require sending all the Bitcoin? To fix your example, it’d be more like paying for a $20 item with $100MM worth of $50 notes, and receiving $100MM-20 in change.

yieldcrv 3y ago

far more likely that those amateurs at the SEC were trying to schedule a post and accidentally pressed send Gensler freaked out and said it was compromised if you’ve ever worked in government this would be your first assumption

rstuart4133 3y ago
Bing, bing, bing, we have a winner. An upvote to you sir, for being right.

crtified 3y ago

The SEC should never have put itself in the position where it was vulnerable to this type of online impersonation. This seems less about crypto - after all, crypto will crypto - and more about "why the heck did the SEC normalise Twitter as a communications outlet!?".

edgyquant 3y ago
I don’t believe it was the SEC who normalized Twitter as the default communications platform. It was the public and the media who did that and the SEC followed

CryptoGirl 3y ago

Market manipulation by Twitter hacking..some speculate a delay in approvals now..ugh .who knows anything anymore, at this point?

HumblyTossed 3y ago

Regarding the SEC: how much help did the “hackers” get from inside X?

mikhael28 3y ago

Never stop gambling.

MCUmaster 3y ago

Hey did they fix segwit yet? It’s been like 5 years…

lulznews 3y ago

Excited for the next bubble of crypto scams. After shitcoins we got NFTs. What’s next?

pants2 3y ago
Ordinals and restaking

ckbishop 3y ago

"Hacked" Feels like something Elon would orchestrate for the purposes of trolling the SEC.

lulznews 3y ago

Honestly it could be Gensler getting “hacked” to pnd for his Wall Street pals. Absolute clown show jail sentences all around.

rafaelero 3y ago

I doubt they were hacked. If someone is smart enough to hack them, they would be smart enough to realize they would make more money if they released a note saying the ETF was rejected. My theory is that the SEC just posted it at the wrong time accidentally.

486sx33 3y ago

[dead]

moose_man 3y ago

They nerfed this thread =(

traeregan 3y ago

X's @Safety account just confirmed some details of the compromise: https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1744924042681897343 https://twitter.com/Safety/status/1744924042681897343 I'm surprised that the SEC wasn't using 2FA.

WinstonSmith84 3y ago
This organization is truly appealing, they have really no understanding of tech.. In fact, that tweet 2 months ago from Gary cannot be more ironical https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1716786621847392497 https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1716786621847392497