Emergency Pod: The SEC Sh*ts the Bed, Sends out fake tweet on Bitcoin ETF approval

[00:00] Emergency. [00:04] Welcome to the Feelings Check-In, a feelings first look at the news of the week. Takes no one asked for on topics everyone's talking about. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. The Boys Club podcast? No. No. [00:21] Just Boys Club. Guess what? Boys Club is doing our very first conference called Brand New. Dina, what are we going to be talking about? So we're going to be covering a lot of the stuff that we cover on this podcast. Crypto, of course, the new internet, digital culture, emerging technology. We'll be at the Austin proper on March 12th. And we're pulling in some of the smartest people we know. It's going to be very fun. [00:51] now, today, go buy your ticket. Members and zaddy holders get special pricing. And if you aren't a member, you can apply to attend brand new. So go to boysclub.vip backslash brand new link and show notes to get all the details and can't wait to see you in Austin. Yeehaw! [01:09] We've never done an emergency pod before. [01:13] But this felt like the perfect time to do one. [01:16] It really did. It really did. I feel like I'm actually quite a serious person, but [01:22] I love the idea that I'm perfectly situated in an industry that's so unserious, because then I can approach the work with a lack of

[01:30] seriousness that that's matched yes very deeply funny 24 hours on the internet emergency pod had to call it the sec has fully shit the bed [01:42] And we're going to talk about that here today. Let's get into it. [01:47] Hey, Natasha, what is crypto to you? Crypto is so much more than charts and gains. It's a whole new financial system, entirely new technological rails to enable creativity, ownership, wealth building, and more. Free of credit scores and spending habits, Kraken is your easy to use, newbie friendly bridge to this whole new world. Everything can be better. So why not finance? To get started, go to kraken.com backslash boys club, sign up in just a few minutes and see what [02:17] of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to US and US territory customers by Payward Ventures, Incorporated, PVI, DBA, Kraken. Okay, so I know you know what happened, but for folks who, I don't know, maybe are new to this or aren't living on Twitter, which is seemingly a requirement these days of being informed. Totally. So yesterday, [02:47] the crypto industry for Bitcoin, the Twitter account of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, was hacked. [02:53] yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, and the hackers sent out a very official looking tweet, an extremely official looking tweet. So legitimate looking. With some fancy language and a little graphic that had Gary Gensler's face on it that said all the Bitcoin ETFs were approved, according to Gary Gensler and had a quote from Gary Gensler. This went out from the official Twitter account X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[03:17] The context and backdrop for this [03:19] coming out is that [03:21] an announcement is [03:23] is still imminent. An announcement was imminent yesterday afternoon. It still is imminent today. Crypto Twitter has been waiting on this for literal years. [03:31] have been talking about the ETF, have been anticipating the ETF. It's been the constant conversation years in the making. It's the main character of the year so far for- It 100% is. And- [03:42] The deadline for the SEC to make an announcement about their decision on these preliminary ETF filings from last year is today. [03:49] So the timing of all of it could not have been more perfect. When the announcement went out, [03:57] Needless to say, there was exuberance on the time when the fake announcement went out. Exuberance. Oh, joy. What was your experience of that moment? Oh, just like we were on a call and you texted me. [04:09] me while we were on the call the tweet and [04:13] I had to keep it cool because we were on a call. I almost said on the call, "Oh my God, the ETFs have been approved." But then I thought better of it. And so glad that I did. And then I sent a tweet out immediately while still on the call that was like, "Happy ETF approval day to all those who celebrate," or something like that. And I was just like, [04:34] even in that moment of still being on the call and looking at the timeline, it was just like, everything's blowing up. Everybody's excited and [04:42] And there's an energy around it. And then you, we got off the call. We hop on a separate call, just us and Miranda. You were like, can you believe it? And I was like, all of them approved. You're like, all of them approved. And I was like, wow, I got to go buy more Bitcoin.

[04:59] And then I had to immediately get on another call. And then I'm on another call. And as we're talking, he was like, yeah, I don't know if you saw, but the ETFs are approved. And I was like, [05:12] with me [05:12] And then you send me a text about it being fake, that it was hacked, like a tweet from somebody else. And you were just like, LOL, the funniest thing. This is the funniest thing or something like that. And then I, on this call, my Discord, my Telegram, like every notification platform that exists was just like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And I was just like, oh my gosh, a mix of conspiracy theories and disappointment, retractions, everybody responding at the same time. [05:42] Everybody was online at the same time. We're going to get into those conspiracy theories in a bit. But yeah, that's a great timeline of events. I would say that when the initial tweet that we now know is fake went out, it was, do you know the meme from the office where it's happening? It's happening? It's happening? Yeah. That was the energy. [05:59] That was the energy in our Discord, like telegrams lit up, our chats were lighting up. So my experience of how I found out it was fake was... [06:07] So you and me are in a chat with Parker Patriot and Kelly Greer. And it's, I would say it's probably the most DGEN chat. It's the most based thing I'm a part of. The two of them are, are Gen Z based girlies and DGENs traders. And Kelly does institutional sales at Galaxy, which is a crypto investment firm. She's very serious job. She's a very serious person. And so when I sent, when I was like, oh my gosh, it's approved. And she was like, it was a hack. And if it was anyone else, it's,

[06:36] that said that I would have thought that they were they were joking because that's a hilarious joke yeah but she's like a very serious person so then I would go to Gary and she's like go to Gary Gensler's Twitter account so I went to Gary Gensler's Twitter account head of the SEC and he had the tweet that said it was compromised and unauthorized Twitter was posted and so then obviously everything [06:52] starts going crazy. I'm just going to read a little bit of this. [06:56] Text exchange. [06:58] the group chat you're getting a little look into the group chat you send the [07:02] Tweet that it's been approved. Parker says, let's fucking go. Kelly immediately responds, nope, hacked, brutal. You say, wait, what hack? What do you mean, Kelly? She said, the SEC Twitter, look at Gensler's account. [07:13] Then you say, holy shit, with a tweet that's like, we've been compromised. And he said, I'm dying, absolutely dying at this. Parker says, fuck, in all caps. Kelly goes, I hate this industry. This is why we can't have nice things. And then Parker goes, curled up over the toilet, throwing up, trauma, rug pull, flashback, SEC, dead emoji. And then Kelly says, felt. [07:34] This is what was happening while I was on this call and I was like, "Oh my God!" You know what I liked about SJ? The crypto industry came together. [07:44] In a rare moment... [07:46] We're so divided. [07:48] so often and there was a moment yesterday for about a half an hour where we were all [07:53] Aligned. Aligned. Aligned incentives. [07:57] um so that's what happened bitcoin's price bounced around it slid down to i think 45k 200 million dollars was liquidated like it was a serious event for a lot of people i love thinking about the people who are like i'm out i'm out so that's a lot of money i'm sure a lot of people were very seriously impacted um we're laughing about it and making light of it here that's just the type of podcast this is if you can't handle that there's other podcasts that i'm sure are

[08:27] That's where we're at. You're matching the energy of the SEC. Totally. So then a lot of speculation starts happening. What's going on? Is this a hack? Was Garrett Gensler's account hacked as well? You can imagine just speculation on speculation. The hack of the Twitter account was confirmed by XMAC. [08:47] Twitter last night. They confirmed this hack in such a passive aggressive way. It's honestly a beautiful tweet. And this was, this is a posted by, um, at security, an official Twitter account. And it said, [08:58] We investigated it. [08:59] and it looks like someone who had access to the SET Twitter was sim-swapped, essentially. Okay. And then they're going to say that they didn't have two-factor authentication on. [09:09] And then they drop a link for how to turn on two-factor authentication, which is just like so passive-aggressive. So passive-aggressive. It's incredible. But also just the fact that they didn't have two-factor on. I mean, Boys Club has the worst OPSEC in the world, and we have two-factor. I know. With our Twitter, we do. And with almost anything, we do. But I do just like, I don't want to put karma. I don't want to put any bad vibes out into the world. You know, it's hard to have good security. [09:39] I don't want to invite it. And I feel like judging the SEC, it's only asking for it. True. Okay. That's fair. Another, I think, important layer to consider in this whole story, and I think what makes this story so rich is that [09:55] this type of shenanigan

[09:57] coming from the SEC and Gary Gensler specifically. Their whole remit is investor protections. And, [10:04] Gary, his main criticism of crypto is around how easy market manipulation is. And sending false or misleading tweets is like one of the main levers that people use in market manipulation these days. And so the irony of this happening and the market being manipulated is just so... [10:23] Deep. The SEC had the opportunity to do the funniest thing, and they did it. [10:26] They did. Unintentionally, but they did. Okay. So then I want to get into three theories of what happened and what will happen next. Conspiracy theories or? It's a range from government incompetence to tin hat conspiracy theory. Nice. Cool. Let's go. Let's journey. We'll start with what I actually believe and what I think is the most likely scenario, which is... [10:50] is just like dumb. [10:51] on dumb, like dumb squared. The SEC account was hacked. [10:56] And the tweet was real. [10:58] But the hacker... [11:00] didn't have this planned in advance. [11:02] Oh, interesting. Like you think it's, you think it's a draft. It was a draft. It was a draft. Draft tweets. [11:09] It was a joke tweet. So shout out to Adam Cochran on Twitter. They put this... [11:13] together, but basically like hacker, sim swapped, whatever, something happened. The hacker gets in. [11:19] He has a screenshot of this really dumb tweet that possibly went out first, which was basically just a ticker symbol. Like it was just like dollar sign BTC. Okay. That was sent from the SEC account.

[11:31] which is dumb. Like if that, if a hacker got in, [11:35] And they sent that tweet that that's not advanced shit posting. I'd say that's little leagues. They then went into the drafts folder and, [11:44] and saw the draft with the announcement graphic and let it rip. Wow, that's a cool theory. That's a cool theory. Now, [11:52] I will say that there's some chat like drafts are saved locally. Well, drafts are saved locally. [12:00] on either desktop or [12:03] mobile. I don't know if they're saved to the computer. Right. I don't know if they're saved to the computer or not, but there was some chat about that. I was like, I could research this, but... [12:11] I why why what I like about this is two things one it has the hacker being just an opportunist it has the hacker not being like a mastermind which I think most people aren't [12:24] And most people are opportunists. So I think that that kind of checks out to me. Additionally, like this type of hack. We're not talking some like complex blockchain smart contract. Totally. This is getting to someone's Twitter account. [12:37] Yeah. Also this [12:39] really highlights government incompetence. Aaron in our Discord said, "As someone who's worked in government, the lack of appropriate tech security does not surprise me whatsoever." And that checks out to me. Or it was scheduled incorrectly, that's another thing that maybe happened where it's like it meant to go out and maybe there was no hack, but [12:55] Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah. The second... [12:59] which is more tin haddish but it's not on the extreme end is what i'm calling no worries if not which is that they put they put out the tweet on purpose but there was so much backlash that they reverted course

[13:12] Oh, that seems very unlikely, but I love the title. And then finally, the tin hat theory, which is that this is PSYOPs from the US government and or TrapPi. The hack in air quotes was an insider job and it was done to basically destabilize the conversation around the ETF and crypto. [13:32] even more than it already is. You know what that... [13:35] Go ahead. That theory reads to me. That's such a crypto person being so into crypto that they think everybody's thinking about crypto as much as they are. And they're not. [13:47] They're just simply are not. [13:48] And so that theory is like, you know, when people are like really, really into their startup and they think it's like the coolest thing in the world and they can't imagine people wanting not being into it. Or like when someone's really, really into their boyfriend and they think like the whole world is like revolving around them and their relationships. It's the same energy. [14:05] Obsessed girlfriend energy. Exactly. Exactly. [14:09] Yeah. I mean, I can like, I can. [14:13] I can get there with this idea. Well, you can get anywhere with any idea, to be fair. [14:21] That's not saying very much. I can get there. I can entertain it in my mind. I do think that there's a lot of disincentives for the US government and for traditional finance to embrace cryptocurrency, for sure. I do believe that. Yeah, I think like I just come back, I keep coming back to like government incompetence that like, even if... [14:40] I don't know, like a psyop on this level would be... It's sort of just like the path of... I feel like most of the time it's always just the path of least resistance. And...

[14:49] The idea that someone didn't have two-factor authentication on their Twitter checks out. I think the next level that I'm willing to accept is that it was drafted. [14:59] Because it was very it read [15:02] Very insider baseball. It read very... [15:05] Official. Yeah. Yeah. And official. So I can get down with that. I think curious what happens today. What happens today will be very telling. Do you think what happened will impact. [15:16] The ETFs at all. [15:17] No, I think there's so much bureaucracy around these applications and the filings and all the different back office filings and how many different entities and organizations and government organizations are involved in rubber stamping all this stuff. I think that if something is in motion, then... [15:38] it will still happen. How the markets respond to that, I don't know, given how quickly the markets moved yesterday. That's evidence to not support crypto. But I do think if they are getting approved, they'll still get approved yesterday's events, notwithstanding. And [15:56] We're expected to hear an announcement today. I'm like refreshing Twitter all the time to see if something's come out because... [16:01] were due some sort of decision today so wow well thank you for the update um we got to get this turned around before news new news hits the feed the timeline uh okay well we'll be here [16:15] With bated breath. [16:19] Okay. Bye. Bye.

[16:21] you [16:21] When you're first getting started with crypto, it can be scary. Am I doing this right? Is this just like my bank or trading app? How is it new and different? Well, that's why we love Kraken. They have a 24-7, 365 customer support team that's there to hold your hand all along the way. This isn't a 9-to-5, Monday-to-Fried bank. This is crypto. It's all the time. Anyone's welcome. Open-door policy. Come one, come all. Try something new at kraken.com backslash boys club. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. [16:51] are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Ventures, Inc. PVI, DBA, Kraken.