The mighty SEC had its Twitter (X) account hacked and the culprits threw up a Tweet stating that they’d approved the much anticipated spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

A Tale of Tweets

The SEC's account gets hacked, the news comes out, the denial flies out the door, but it’s too late, too many outlets had reported it, and chaos ensues. It's all looking pretty bad for America's financial overlords.

Here’s the Tweet that started it all:

This was followed by a denial from the SEC’s Gary Gensler:

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.

— Gary Gensler (@GaryGensler) January 9, 2024

The Damage is Done

However, the damage was done. Bitcoin spiked as high as $47,897 following the SEC's X post and then fell to as low as $44,903.

Now the cat’s really among the pigeons, with $90 million in liquidations, and some within the community calling foul for market manipulation.

Not Twitter's Fault

X (Twitter) have come out and said that there was no breach of their systems and rumors are flying that the SEC didn’t have two-factor authentication turned on.

We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised and we have completed a preliminary investigation. Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number…

— Safety (@Safety) January 10, 2024

The SEC, the financial overlords of seemingly everything. Hacked. And it’s (quite possibly) because they hadn’t secured their account, and some outlets think an intern did it. It’d be deliciously sweet if it weren’t so serious.

But just pause and read this:

Careful what you read on the internet. The best source of information about the SEC is the SEC.

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) October 16, 2023

Whatever the case, we don’t know why the Tweet was sent and we don’t know who sent it. What is clear is that it’s incredibly embarrassing for the SEC.

Meme Material

In any case, here are some of the finest memes cooked up by Internet wits:

The SEC rn pic.twitter.com/MzH07AiNXq

— tweet davidson 🍞 (@andykreed) January 9, 2024

OMG the SECGOV seriously isn't using any security for their account 🤯

Anyone want to take guesses at their email??? pic.twitter.com/GK8h9FuVWF

— Captain_Plantain (@Cap_Plantain) January 9, 2024

With all the #SEC & #ETF going on, it’s only natural that we get a good #memecoin going

That’s why we have $SCAMEVERYBODYCHAD - $SEC

CA is clean AF, Dexscreenalready updated. DEV & COMMUNITY working together to send this.

99BtnqUj4mnvZRvoT9DQHqUmwGGZCg7zmfi3TiKmjmt6 pic.twitter.com/qTOuJSygSC

— Stefan Grimsell (@Grimmy_322) January 10, 2024

LIVE VIEW OF SPOT BITCOIN ETF LAUNCH

pic.twitter.com/qNa6IuPbNf

— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) January 9, 2024

leaked images of the sec account hacker pic.twitter.com/JYyTF88JIZ

— Hsaka (@HsakaTrades) January 9, 2024

#btc #etf #bnb #Solana
The incredible piwerd by sec😉 pic.twitter.com/PKBkDyBdBF

— $$$ GET RICH WITH MEME $$$ (@getrichwithmeme) January 10, 2024