🤔 Ever wonder how to hack the SEC?
Plus: When AI robots turn from helpers to hazards
GM. Welcome to the Daily Squeeze, your crypto smoothie bar – blending market madness into a refreshingly smooth sip of the latest news.
🦹♂️ The guy who hacked the SEC’s X account got arrested.
🍊 News drops: researchers have managed to make AI-powered robots perform dangerous tasks, Worldcoin has launched its own blockchain, Faketoshi Craig Wright has filed another lawsuit + more
🍍 Market flavor today
The Fear and Greed Index is holding steady in “Greed” at 73. Bitcoin tried to slam dunk past the $68K mark yesterday but got a tough block. It’s currently dribbling around $67K, looking for that perfect shot. The big question: Can BTC regain its bullish momentum and take the championship? 🏀
Well, strong US economic data and a hot earnings report from TSMC have cooled off investor appetite for crypto, pulling some attention toward stocks instead. But crypto analyst Matthew Hyland says the bears shouldn’t get too excited unless BTC dips below $58.8K.
In the ETF league, BTC ETFs are racking up wins with $470.5M in inflows just yesterday. ETH ETFs aren’t sitting on the bench either, with $48.4M in inflows.
Eyes on the prize, team. In this arena, NBA means No Bears Allowed 😎
🦹♂️ Hacking 101: Google It
Let’s take a trip back to January of this year. I know, I know – you don’t even remember what you had for dinner last night, blahblahblah. Don’t worry, I’ll do the memory part, and you just sit back, relax, read, and enjoy.
It’s January 9, a chilly winter night in the US. All the crypto bros are winding down, cozy with a cup of tea, enjoying the calm. Until suddenly, they all get a notification: SEC’s X account says spot Bitcoin ETFs have been approved.🚨
What happened after was AAA GO CRAZY AAAA GO STUPID, and Bitcoin spiked by $1K. And for what? For Gary Gensler to clarify that the account got hacked and the info was false – and just like that, Bitcoin dropped by $2K.
So, what’s the backstory? One of the people behind this was Eric Council Jr., a 25-yr-old from Alabama, aka “Ronin”, “Easymunny” (😎), and “AGiantSchnauzer” (makes the situation even crazier knowing it was actually a dog who did this).
He used this technique called SIM swapping. Basically, he tricked the phone carrier into transferring the SEC’s X account number to a SIM card he controlled. And once he had control of the number, he could easily pass 2FA.
Here’s how he did it:
1. Got the victim’s personal info and ID template from his crime partners;
2. Printed himself a fake ID using his own card printer (✨arts & crafts✨);
3. Went to the phone carrier’s store and got a SIM card linked to the victim’s phone number;
4. Bought an iPhone with cash;
5. Used his new purchases to access the X account, then sent the necessary codes to his crew;
6. The crew then made the post, while Council Jr. travelled to a different city to sell the phone for cash;
7. Went back home, watered his plants, idk.
Now, my fave part – my guy GOOGLED stuff like “SECGOV hack”, “Telegram sim swap”, and “how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI”. Wonder if he found a WikiHow guide on this. Either way, this just proves that he really deserved to get caught.
After staying under the radar for a bit, our fraudster was finally arrested yesterday. He’s now facing charges for conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
But the thing is, the SEC actually approved Bitcoin ETFs the next day. Maybe we should really be thanking him for handling the announcement?..
📰 News drops
🤖 A group of researchers found major flaws in AI-powered robots, proving they could make these machines carry out dangerous tasks. This included stuff like delivering bombs, running into pedestrians, and blocking emergency exits.
🌍 Sam Altman’s World (formerly Worldcoin) just launched its own Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain called World Chain. All 15M users who’ve verified their identity by scanning their iris for a “World ID” can now access and use the new network.
⚖️ The SEC’s appeal in the Ripple case doesn’t go after the court’s decision that XRP isn’t a security. Instead, they’re asking for a review of the rulings on XRP sales on exchanges, plus the personal sales by CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen.
🥸 EigenLayer’s X account got hacked and started promoting a fake airdrop. The link for the so-called airdrop actually led users to an unrelated sketchy site.
📝 Craig Wright, who recently lost his case in the UK High Court claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, is back with another lawsuit. This time, he’s accusing Bitcoin Core developers of falsely promoting BTC as the original Bitcoin, while he argues that Bitcoin SV is the real deal.
🦾 Nvidia has launched a new AI model that’s claimed to beat out the systems currently out there. Called Llama-3.1-Nemotron-70B-Instruct, it’s being hyped as the “leading model” on lmarena.AI’s Arena Hard benchmark.
