Well, the story is still developing, but back in the early aughts of the internet, when men were men and memes were memes, this would have certainly been called an “epic fail.”

That’s right, the SEC, the supposed ultimate authority on crypto, had a supremely embarrassing, public fumble yesterday which naturally we will cover in depth.

SEC? More like Super Embarrassing Cringe.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Bitcoin Breaks $47K 🤯 

Late on Monday night, Bitcoin briefly popped over the $47,000 mark. And it did so again on Tuesday afternoon.

This price bump was undoubtedly brought on by the excitement surrounding this week’s Bitcoin Spot ETF decisions.

We’re proud of Bitcoin, but also disappointed that BTC has already failed its New Year’s resolution to stop getting extremely high in the middle of the night.

☕️ Bitcoin Crashes… 📉

We know, we know, we got your hopes up just to dash them on the cold rocks of reality. Get used to it.

In short, Bitcoin skyrocketed to on Tuesday afternoon in the wake of an exciting announcement from the SEC…

Bitcoin went from $46,600 to a two-hear high of $47,680. Only to plummet minutes later to the price of $45,500. 

Why did this happen? Who would do such a thing? Well, let’s get into it.

Spilling the Beans

How the SEC 💩 the Bed…

The Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) has positioned itself as the ultimate authority on crypto as well as its ultimate antagonist.

Naturally, it will be up to the SEC to decide whether or not the active wave of Bitcoin Spot ETF applications are ultimately approved.

And for a moment there, we were certain that approval had taken place.

Why? Because on Tuesday afternoon, the official SEC Twitter Account tweeted that it had granted general approval for Bitcoin ETFs.

As one might imagine, the market reacted accordingly, with Bitcoin shooting to a two-year high.

But just as quickly, our hopes and Bitcoin came crashing down when it was revealed that this wasn’t a genuine statement from the SEC, but rather that the SEC’s official Twitter (currently X) had been hacked.

And who could deliver this devastating news with more candor, more aplomb, than Gary Gensler himself?

Naturally, the tweet at the heart of this scandal has since been taken down, but don’t worry, many (including us) have screenshots.

The SEC has tried to clean up this PR nightmare… unfortunately, the people of Twitter have not been kind, sharing this old SEC tweet…

Of course no amount of tidying up could stop crypto Twitter from having a field day with this development.

Here are a couple of our personal favorites:

And as many were quick to point out, there’s an inherent lunacy to announcing that a government regulatory body’s social media account has been hacked… on the same social media site.

Though yes, this story is still developing and this massive, institutional embarrassment shouldn’t detract from the fact that we should be expecting a very real verdict on the ETF decision this week.

But for now, it seems that ETF approval can only end one way:

With Gary Gensler standing on a parking garage rooftop in the pouring rain frantically pointing a pistol between two identical SEC X accounts, unsure which one he should shoot.

Crypto 101

Memory Pool: Sometimes referred to as “mempool.”

In crypto mining, the memory pool stores transactions that are waiting to be validated by miners.

The mempool prioritizes those transactions by setting up a minimal transaction fee threshold. 

The Last Sip

The SEC’s cyber security team is reportedly absolutely stumped by this attack, as they distinctly remember posting, “We do not give anyone permission to hack our account” in 2008.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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