The posting, which has since been deleted, pre-empted an imminent announcement from the SEC about whether it will approve the trading of spot bitcoin ETFs. The fake post featured a photo of SEC chair Gary Gensler and a convincing quote: "Today’s approval enhances market transparency and provides investos with efficient access to digital asset invesments within a regulated framework."Within fifteen minutes of the post going live on X, Gensler hastily took to the platform to deny that any such approval had been given.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 incident marks a major cybersecurity bungle by the SEC, given the weight of its market signals for affecting trade movements. By the time it was deleted the post had racked up millions of views and been reported on by major media outlets, including Reuters.In a statement, X exacerbated the cybersecurity implications of the incident by acknowledging that the SEC account didn’t have two-factor authentication implemented. The regulator has been mocked on X for the oversight.The @SECGov under @GaryGensler lacks faithful allegiance to its own lecturing blather 👇🏻 https://t.co/pwoTfPIr2N— CryptoLaw (@CryptoLawUS) January 10, 2024 The news of the compromise provoked outrage among politicians and pundits. Just like the SEC would demand accountability from a public company if they made such a colossal market-moving mistake, Congress needs answers on what just happened. This is unacceptable. https://t.co/tWtLqHtqpu— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) January 9, 2024