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If you thought that the drama around the SEC’s widely expected approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs was now at an end, you would be wrong. After all, you would now have to add a high-profile X account hack into this ongoing soap opera.
Just moments ago, the SEC’s official X account announced that the apex US financial watchdog had approved spot Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all eligible exchanges.
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
Moments thereafter, Gary Gensler, the SEC’s chair, himself clarified that no such approval has been accorded as yet. As per X’s own investigation, it appears that the SEC failed to implement two-factor authentication, allowing an unauthorized third party to gain access to the agency’s X account.
Bear in mind that the SEC is widely expected to approve some of the first spot Bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday. However, it remains unclear as to how muddied the proverbial waters have now become after this incident.
If you’re considering an investment involving crypto assets, be cautious.
Crypto asset securities may be marketed as new opportunities but there are serious risks involved.
Read @SEC_Investor_Ed‘s Director Take:
— Gary Gensler (@GaryGensler) January 9, 2024
Of course, in the runup to these high-profile approvals, Gensler – a known crypto skeptic – has spent a lot of time cautioning against the dangers associated with investing money in the crypto sector. We do not for a moment believe that today’s incident would endear the SEC chair to Bitcoin or the rest of the crypto sector in general.
As we noted in a dedicated post yesterday, leading ETF applicants have all submitted their requisite Form S-1s, which is considered the final step in the ETF approval process. In fact, many of these applicants re-submitted these forms today, replete with last-minute changes. Accordingly, before today’s hacking incident, many analysts believed that the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs was a done deal. Now, these analysts will have to re-examine their scenario probabilities by incorporating the collateral damage to the general sentiment in the SEC from today’s hacking incident.
Some of our readers might be confused by all of the brouhaha over the launch of these spot Bitcoin ETFs, and rightfully so. After all, futures-based ETFs of the world’s preeminent cryptocurrency already exist. However, Bitcoin’s futures-based ETFs do suffer from material underperformance due to the fact that the contracts for the months ahead are usually priced at a premium to the spot price in what is known as contango, leading to progressively expensive roll-overs as the front-month contract expires and the next one takes its place. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, on the other hand, sidestep this major bottleneck entirely, leading to elevated investment inflow expectations.