Gensler's post came 15 minutes after the SEC's X account falsely reported that spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved.
Multiple news outlets released a false story following the official X (formerly Twitter) account from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), posting a tweet claiming that the regulator had approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds for the first time.
In a Jan. 9 X post, SEC chair Gary Gensler said the commission had “not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” despite a tweet from the official SEC X account. News outlets, including Cointelegraph, Blockworks, and Reuters initially reported on the story from the SEC before Gensler’s statement.
The Jan. 9 X post from the official SEC account claimed that the commission had granted approval for Bitcoin ETFs for listing on U.S. exchanges, showing a photo and faked quote from the SEC chair. The offending tweet was up for several minutes before being removed.
