By Mengqi Sun

An Alabama man has pleaded guilty to hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission's official X account last year to manipulate bitcoin prices.

Eric Council Jr., a 25-year-old from Athens, Ala., on Monday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to one count of conspiring to commit identity theft and access device fraud, according to the Justice Department. Council will be sentenced on May 16 and faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of supervised release.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Council conspired with others to take control of SEC's X account and to post a fake message in the name of the former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, falsely announcing that the agency had approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds. For months, investors had been anticipating the SEC's decision, which had the potential to affect the price of bitcoin.

Prosecutors said the fake post caused the price of bitcoin to immediately shoot up by $1,000. The token then fell $2,000 after the securities regulator quickly responded by saying that the post was unauthorized.

Council and his co-conspirators allegedly gained control of the SEC X account through a "SIM swap." A SIM swap is a type of attack in which the hacker tricks a telecommunications provider into switching the phone number associated with a particular mobile phone to a different device.

Council allegedly made a fraudulent identification card and used it to impersonate the victim and gain access to the cellular phone number attached to the SEC account. His co-conspirators then accessed the X account and posted in Gensler's name.

Council obtained at least $50,000 from his role in the scheme, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Council was arrested in Alabama in October. A lawyer representing Council didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The incident prompted criticism from lawmakers and mockery of the SEC from the crypto community. The agency's actual approval of bitcoin ETFs came one day after the fake announcement.

Write to Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 10, 2025 16:18 ET (21:18 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.