Federal prosecutors are said to be possibly looking forward to gaining the plea bargain of an Alabama man named Eric Council Jr., who is alleged to have approached the X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which he manipulated to bring about a steep rise in Bitcoin prices.
A plea bargain was declared on October 25th, meaning that U.S. attorney Kevin Rosenberg told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson this. However, whether Council 25 will agree to the deal is still unclear.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Council last week as they investigated the October hacking attack. In the press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia, Council is said to have used a SIM-swap attack to gain unauthorized access to the SEC’s X account, through which he posted a fake message that affected the crypto market. This led to a $1000 spike in Bitcoins as investors struggled to assess this news, given the positive sentiment over the expected approval of a PHYSICAL BITCOIN ETF.
It immediately seized control of its account and clarified that the given message was a scam, leading to Bitcoin erasing more than $2,000 in gains in a matter of minutes. These price fluctuations depicted market volatility due to the constant discussion about spot Bitcoin ETFs, which were later approved and resulted in Bitcoin hitting the $73,000 mark.
According to investigators who discovered he was paid in Bitcoin for orchestrating the SIM-swap attack, the Council has been charged with device fraud and conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft. The case reveals the weakness of famous social media profiles and applies to any industry as sensitive as cryptocurrency.
The hack of the SEC’s X account and all the consequences that ensued show how important social media is in the cryptocurrency market. Looking forward while federal prosecutors advance with the case, this event remains a good example of possible dangers and the need for appropriate security for digital finance.
