Hacker in SEC X account breach faces $50k fine in plea deal

Eric Council Jr., the man accused of helping to breach the X account of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has pleaded guilty to the charges.

As a result, Council faces a potential $50,000 fine as part of the plea deal, Bloomberg reported.

U.S. authorities proposed the forfeiture of the $50k in a filing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Feb. 9. The fine relates to what prosecutors say is an amount that Council “personally obtained” amid the fake post on X, formerly Twitter, that alleged the SEC had approved the first spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds in the United States.

Bitcoin price spiked sharply before plummeting as the agency confirmed its X account had been hacked.

As crypto.news reported at the time, the FBI arrested Council in October 2024. Later that month, reports emerged that federal prosecutors were considering a plea deal offer. 

On Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, Eric Council Jr. pled guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and device fraud. Judge Amy Berman Jackson has set the sentencing date to May 16, 2025.

The SEC approved the spot ETFs a day after the hack, with the market interest seeing Blackock’s IBIT ETF dominate inflows as buying pressure ramped up. Over the year, the inflows hit over $40 billion, with the U.S. spot ETFs market closing 2024 with over $120 billion in net assets.

Further developments at the SEC meanwhile saw the approval of spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs in the U.S. The election of Donald Trump has also since seen a raft of resignations and exits at the agency, notably that of former chair Gary Gensler. 

Meanwhile, the industry has witnessed a flurry of activity in relation to new ETF applications, including for Litecoin, XRP, Solana and Dogecoin.