Yesterday was great, Brady writes.

• The SEC's account on X was compromised, allowing some cybercriminal to post a professional-looking announcement that said bitcoin ETFs were good to go on national exchanges. Honestly, no notes.

Why it matters: LOL.

• Seriously, though, we got a preview of market reaction. Bitcoin shot up in value to $47,680. Then when word came out that it was a bogus post, it plunged to the $45,000 range. (See below.)

The aftermath: Corrections were quickly circulated. The agency has called the cops. And X blamed the agency.

• A few outlets had jumped on the tweet. CNBC put out a since-corrected post and Bloomberg TV interrupted a conversation with the lead Bitcoin critic at Better Markets, Dennis Kelleher, to announce the news. 🤦
• We confess: Axios had its eyes on its own prepped version of the news and was sifting through the SEC's filings database, but sometimes it's nice to be just a little slower on the draw.

Meanwhile, 15 minutes after the bogus tweet fired the spring, SEC chair Gary Gensler took to X to shove the bitcoin ETF jack back in its box.

• "The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products," Gensler wrote in the post, which as of this morning had garnered 26 million views.

Gensler's critics were of course charitable about the gaff, recognizing that everyone makes mistakes...

🙊 Just kidding! Crypto folks couldn't wait to mock the agency that has long stymied the industry's efforts to go legit.

• "I expect @SECGov Enforcement to send the SEC's Social Media and Cybersecurity teams a Wells Notice any minute," Gemini's Tyler Winklevoss tweeted.
• Flashback: Last July, the agency put out cyber incident disclosure rules for regulated entities. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency declined to comment, referring Axios to the SEC's statement.
• This is also a good one, but you need to see the GIF.
• See 5️⃣

📨 Behind the scenes: Our inboxes (and those of many of our fellow reporters) were inundated with statements that had clearly been prepped to coincide with the ETF launch.

• Retractions of such statements were issued nearly as quickly as the SEC's turnaround.

Threat level: It wouldn't be a historic event on the blockchains without some kind of hijinks.

• Social media market manipulation is an old favorite. I was working at CoinDesk when its Twitter account was taken over, along with many other major accounts, via a compromise of Twitter itself.
• Once upon a time, then-CEO Jack Dorsey lost control of his own account, through SIM swapping.
• In each case, the hackers used their platform to proffer some kind of cryptocurrency scam.

🤨 What we're watching: Could this compromise actually screw up the widely expected approvals today.

Quick take: Hollywood might make entertainment, but the crypto industry is entertainment.

Axios' Sam Sabin contributed reporting.

This is the story above as shown on a bitcoin price chart, Brady writes.

• It wasn't just for laughs. Traders (probably mostly bots) got hit with $90 million in liquidations, mostly on the long side.

Threat level: Wallet drainers were already putting up scam pages last night offering to "refund" anyone impacted by the news.

• Do not visit these sites.

This chart shows how much a trader would have gained or lost if they sold a bitcoin exactly one, two, three or four years after buying it, Brady writes.

• Since 2022, for folks who waited three or four years, there hasn't been a single such sale that wouldn't have resulted in positive return.

Be smart: This is why bitcoin O.G.'s refer to bull run arrivistes in the market "tourists." They don't stick around.

• Past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes, but just chasing short-term gains really does tend to be a bad move.
• As is true for many investments, normal people who don't intend to eat and breathe the markets should probably stick to trades they can sit on for a while.

Here's the non-fake news about yesterday's fake news:

• 😡 Lawmakers and crypto boosters are going after the SEC for "manipulating" the BTC market. (CoinDesk)
• 📬 Two senators want Gensler to address the social media security breach. (Decrypt)
• 🫡 Coinbase execs offered to help the SEC with security practices. (The Block)

Quick take: Not trying to get all teacher-like here, but it's 2024 and everyone needs multifactor authentication enabled by now — seriously.

The SEC's security issue yesterday drew out the best of what's left of Crypto Twitter, Crystal writes.

The big picture: It was only a matter of time before someone invoked FTX's soon-to-be-sentenced co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

• Brady bet at least one person was blaming SBF, and he was right. There were several.

Zoom in: This one from Autism Capital slayed (are you reading Axios Cryptoers?! We just made a GoT reference). 🗡️

• This is the moment that Lady Olenna Tyrell was forced to drink poisoned wine. She confesses to poisoning King Joffrey Baratheon to a gobsmacked Jaime Lannister and delivers her withering last line: "Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me."

The intrigue: If there's GoT-inspired intrigue at play and someone in crypto wronged by the SEC was responsible, that list of possible culprits is much, much longer than Arya's.