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FBI arrests man in connection with fake bitcoin post on SEC X account: CNBC Crypto World
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Today, the FBI arrests a man prosecutors claim hacked the SEC's ex-account and set Bitcoin prices higher. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev weighs in on reports that the company's chief legal officer could lead the SEC in a Trump presidency. And CalXE's Solo Cisse discusses why he thinks a Harris administration could benefit Bitcoin, while a Trump presidency could boost Ether. Welcome to CNBC's Crypto World. I'm Brandon Gomez. Bitcoin retreating just a bit this morning after testing levels not seen since July. By noon Eastern, the cryptocurrency inched lower by a quarter of one percent. Ether dropped to 26. 30 and Solana dropped 1. 8 percent to $152. Now Anthony Pompliano talked crypto prices when he joined Squawkbox this morning.
He said he disagrees with the notion that Bitcoin's recent jump comes from optimism of a Trump victory, who has been courting crypto voters. About six months after the halving, you get the pricing in of the supply shock. You also have central banks around the world that are cutting interest rates. You have M2 money supply that's now expanding. And then you also have a very bullish investor base, right? If you go and you look at kind of how over levered people are and how excited they are about stocks moving up, Bitcoin moving up, et cetera. Now if you go back and look at 2020, this is right about the time where we went from called $10,000 for six months.
We just went straight up from 10,000 to 64,000 in March of 2021. And so I'm not a huge believer in just like, hey, it's the month of October. Everything's got to go up because usually September is down, but it was a up month. And so we kind of invalidated that thought process. But I do believe that there is something about around six months after the halving, you start to work in that supply change, you get a monetary regime change. And I do think Bitcoin is going to continue to run through the end of the year. OK, let's talk about the top stories for today.
The FBI just arrested a man it claims hacked the SEC's ex account, which sent Bitcoin prices surging. Prosecutors charged a 25 year old Alabama man with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after he allegedly sent a fake post in the name of the agency's chairman in January of this year. And in the post, it claimed that the SEC had granted approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national security exchanges. Now that wasn't true at the time, even if the agency later did approve those Bitcoin ETFs. After the fake post, Bitcoin's price surged by more than a thousand dollars.
The SEC later announced that its account was hacked and the price of Bitcoin fell by more than two thousand dollars, according to the DOJ. Next, Robin Hood's Vlad Tenev joined Squawk Box this morning, where he was asked if the odds of a Trump victory or a more welcoming stance from VP Kamala Harris on the industry are correlated with Bitcoin's upward momentum. Both candidates seem like they're in favor of the US being a leader in the space, which I think is a welcome departure from the status quo. So it could have an effect. You know, the markets could be reacting to the political sphere.
He was also asked to react to reports that Robin Hood's chief legal officer, Dan Gallagher, has been floated as a potential SEC chair pick under a Trump presidency. Tenev highlighted Gallagher's achievements in his role at Robin Hood and asserted his belief that the agency needs people who care about innovation and US leadership in crypto. In May, the company announced that it had received a Wells notice from the SEC threatening enforcement action related to the US crypto business. Last, prosecutors say that the Bitfinex hacker, who stole around 120,000 bitcoins, should get five years in prison. The DOJ made its argument in a court filing on Wednesday.
In it, prosecutors said Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracies back in 2023, should receive a sentence below federal guidelines due to his quote, substantial assistance. Prosecutors also said that following that prison sentence, Lichtenstein should be subject to three years of supervised release. You might remember the arrest of both Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, most famously for Morgan's rapper persona, Razzlecon. She also pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States after Lichtenstein enlisted her help to launder the stolen crypto funds. All right, let's get back to the markets for our main story with Bitcoin testing levels not seen since July and questions around which presidential candidate would be better for crypto markets.
Crypto worlds Jordan Smith spoke with Solo Cisse of Calixi for his take. Let's start just with where markets are right now because prices are retreating a little bit, but we saw Bitcoin test levels not seen since earlier this summer. It was really brief, but Bitcoin is still up about 6% so far this month. What's your thinking on where Bitcoin is right now in the sideways movement that we've been seeing largely over the past few weeks and if you expect any sort of breakout long term? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Bitcoin is at the precipitous of its move upwards into the next phase of the bull market. You've seen where we've been over the last couple of months.
We've been range trading, you know, tap the 60k, you know, resistance level a little bit underneath there a few times as well down all the way to, you know, 53, 54. Haven't really seen the big spikes down to, you know, 45 or sorry, 49, you know, that we saw earlier this year. And so it seems to be the case that we're moving up in, you know, breaking out of this range and testing those local highs. I mean, obviously, it's been super helpful that, you know, the Federal Reserve has, you know, cut rates and has signaled to the market that's going to continue to do so.
So that extra paper being printed and coming to the market should be well for Bitcoin and not just Bitcoin, but all risk assets as well. And so, you know, I think the best moves are yet to come, but it's nice to see that we're starting to break out of those local ranges that we've been in over the last six months or so. You mentioned some of the catalysts there that you think might be leading to that next leg up. But the one that people keep asking me about is the election. And I sort of split that conversation into two.
You know, you have the immediate sense of, you know, we're 19 days away from Election Day if that movement in those 19 days is tied to the election at all. And then you have the longer term conversation about whichever administration actually takes the White House in January. Let's start with immediately right now. Is there movement happening because of the election anticipation around the election or some uncertainty around the candidates? What's your thinking there? I would say that, you know, at this point, Bitcoin has become recognized by the world of politics as a bipartisan asset within the United States. Right.
Like, I think we're starting to see both parties in both administrations looking at this asset as a, you know, asset class as a maturing technology as an opportunity really for this country in terms of leading the evolution of emerging technologies and how we look to reinvent the financial system in terms of immediate price action. It's tough to say and attribute any of those moves that we've seen over the last couple of weeks to anything to do with the election. Just given that, I think both sides are pretty in favor of Bitcoin.
I think and I think the bigger, more important factors to that have a lot to do more with the monetary policy and where we are in our broader economic cycle and the patterns that we see with risk assets. So it seems to be the case that we're right on schedule around that four year point from the last cycle. It's 2021 is a great year, a great run. So really looking forward to that 2025 and with the Fed continuing to print in lower grades, it should only do well for all risk assets. And I think that's going to be the bigger, more impactful moves that we see post-election.
But it's obviously great to see both candidates being constructive on the asset class. You know, obviously it's been a tough couple of years developing and building here for the world of blockchain. But it seems to be that better days are ahead of us. Yeah, let's let's dive a little bit deeper into 2025 with this new administration coming. It seems like there are different tactics when it comes to the two different candidates in terms of how they would approach crypto. Both of them seem largely more supportive than the current administration, just based on things that they said on Trump's side. Obviously, he's talked about going so far as firing Gary Gensler potentially on Kamala Harris's side.
She's she's talked about how she would support cryptocurrency and digital assets, especially in a pitch to black men in particular. It sounds like no matter what happens in January, there is going to be more positive movement from a regulatory front.
But do you see any difference there between those two candidates about which would be more of a catalyst for crypto markets or more of a catalyst for a particular asset specifically, like one is more favorable for Bitcoin or another asset? Yeah, I mean, I think if you look at the approach to both administrations, they've been didn't in their due diligence phases for the past however long that for the past year or so, I'd say that Trump's approach has been pretty on the nose in terms of he went to the Bitcoin conference. He's been a little bit more hands on with the with the community being a part of the community.
People that are deep in the crypto space, you know, it realized that it's a pretty small industry, really, and it's still in its nascent days. And I think that approach of being really hands on has really tailored and really created a you know, I think it really impacted the way in which Trump's administration has presented itself to the industry. And I think they've been welcomed into it. I think a little bit later on, we started to see the Harris administration become more constructive.
And obviously, in the last week, we saw that really big update, as you mentioned, support for minority founders, which there are a lot in the industry, myself, my co-founder, Spencer Dinwiddie, who plays on the Dallas Mavericks and a couple of our friends have been building in this space for a number of years. And it's good to see that people are coming in and trying to support the builders and trying to learn the best about the technologies. But I think that on the nose approach and really being involved in learning and educating both administrations, not just one or the other, you know, we're still in our early days.
And there's a lot more that we got to do in terms of getting people educated and really figuring out. We can create robust regulatory frameworks so that innovation continues to live in the United States and we can be a leader in the Bitcoin future. OK, that's all for Crypto World today. We'll be back again tomorrow and we'll see you there. .
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