Former SEC Account Intruder Announces Bitcoin ETF Approval, Hacker Faces Trial

BlockBeats News, February 11th. According to Bloomberg, a 25-year-old man from Alabama, Eric Council Jr, has admitted to participating in the hacking of the "X" account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In January of last year, he posted a false post on the platform announcing the approval of the first Bitcoin spot ETF. Eric Council Jr pleaded guilty on Monday in a Washington federal court to conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud. Judge Amy Berman Jackson is scheduled to sentence him on May 16th. Prosecutors accused Eric Council Jr of using forged identification and deceiving an employee at a local cell phone store to help him hack into the victim's phone. The day before the SEC account was hacked, analysts predicted that the SEC would announce the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF.

This hacker's fake post on January 9, 2024, caused the price of Bitcoin to skyrocket. Subsequently, the SEC confirmed that the announcement was unauthorized, and the cryptocurrency price promptly fell. The next day, the SEC officially announced the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF.