House Financial Services Demands SEC Explanation on Compromised X Accounts, Bitcoin ETF Postings

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday demanded that SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler answer the committee’s questions about the SEC’s X account hack.

The SEC’s X (formerly Twitter) account posted on Tuesday that the SEC had approved a cryptocurrency ETF, briefly sending Bitcoin prices soaring before it was revealed to be a hoax. The agency said the post was made after the account was compromised.

Ultimately, the agency formally approved the crypto ETF the next day, meeting the court-ordered deadline.

Committee Chair Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Mich.) led the letter, along with Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Rep. French Hill (R-Arkansas), and Ann Wagner. Congressman (R-Missouri) also joined.

“X’s preliminary investigation indicates that two-factor authentication was not enabled on the SEC account and that an unidentified individual gained control of the phone number associated with the SEC account,” the group wrote. “This failure is unacceptable. It is alarming that your agency has failed to even meet the standards we require of private industry.”

“Given yesterday’s tweets, we expect the SEC to adhere to the same requirements imposed on companies across the country,” they continued. All market participants are entitled to transparency from you and your agents. ”

The erroneous post was published for about 30 minutes.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday condemned the incident as “unacceptable” and called for answers from authorities.

“Just as the SEC demands accountability when a public company makes a serious market-moving mistake, Congress needs answers about what happened,” said Hagerty, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. said Hagerty, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Post to X.