A piece of false news that spread like wildfire resulted in a roller coaster of a day for Bitcoin. $100 million worth of Bitcoin got liquidated within minutes following fake reports that BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF was approved by the SEC.
The news was first broken by a well-known and respected Crypto News platform, Cointelegraph, on its social media channel on X (formerly Twitter) that the SEC has decided to approve BlackRock’s application for Spot Bitcoin ETF. The whole of the cryptocurrency world interpreted this as a major victory for the crypto industry, and Bitcoin saw a significant pump from $28000 to $30000 in a quick interval. Influencers started to sing songs of victories for the crypto industry, and liquidations worth $100 million were witnessed as investors sought to profit from this unexpected price increase of Bitcoin.
However, soon word started to spread out that the reality was far from different. Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terret refuted claims that BlackRock has gained approval from the SEC. A representative from BlackRock later verified that they have received no such approval from the SEC for their application, and as of now, their application is still under review. The SEC’s official website also supported this statement.
As soon as this clarification was given, things started to get volatile instantly. The jump that Bitcoin witnessed from $28000 to $30000 was wiped out in a matter of minutes, and at the time of the writing, Bitcoin has corrected itself to $28270.
Cointelegraph later redacted the news from its official Twitter profile and also later issued an apology on its website for spreading false rumours. The message on their website read that the firm is grateful to its user base for the trust they have placed in their authentic news coverage in the crypto space for the past decade. To remain ahead in its goal for breaking news related to the crypto industry, an employee of the Cointelegraph published an unauthorized and unverified tweet on the company’s social media account that the SEC has given a green signal to BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF application.
The employee in question saw this information from an X user who claimed that this news was posted on Bloomberg Terminal first. The firm also said that it deeply regrets its employee’s actions and will conduct an internal investigation so that no such fake news will be given on the company’s profile. Especially news of such a delicate nature that can upheave the market trend in a matter of minutes. The firm also clarified that proper protocols for verifying before posting news were not followed in this case.
The wait for approval for many Bitcoin Spot ETF applications is still going on. Previously the SEC decided not to challenge The District of Court Columbia Court of Appeals verdict that their decision to reject Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF application was not correct and that they would need to review Grayscale’s application again and give proper reason for any rejection. This verdict caused a lot of buzz in the crypto market that it is only a matter of days before the Spot Bitcoin ETF applications will get approved, and the crypto market will see a great deal of bullish momentum in the coming days.
While the wait for these applications to get approved is still ongoing, the eyes of the crypto community are on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to see how much resistance they will give before the inevitable happens, and these ETF applications from Grayscale, Fidelity, BlackRock, and Ark Invest will get approved.
