An individual from Alabama confessed on Monday to participating in a hack that occurred in January 2024, targeting a social media account belonging to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with the intention of manipulating bitcoin prices.

Eric Council Jr., 25, entered a guilty plea to a charge of identity theft during proceedings at U.S. District Court in Washington, according to court documents. The court has scheduled his sentencing for May.

Council was apprehended in October and faced allegations of collaborating in the unauthorized access of the SEC’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. According to prosecutors, this unlawful access enabled unnamed accomplices to disseminate false information claiming that the SEC had approved the long-anticipated bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Following the fraudulent announcement, bitcoin’s price saw a temporary surge of over $1,000.

The compromised account posted a message stating, “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges,” which led to a rapid increase in bitcoin’s value. Shortly after the post, Gary Gensler, who was the SEC Chairman at the time, confirmed on his personal account that the SEC’s account had been breached. This event caused bitcoin’s price to rise from roughly $46,730 to just under $48,000, before it fell to around $45,200 after the SEC’s clarification that the post was fabricated. The actual approval for the first bitcoin ETFs from the SEC was granted the next day, with the cryptocurrency currently trading around the $100,000 mark.

Council executed a tactic known as a “SIM swap.” He used a counterfeit identification to impersonate an individual with access to the SEC’s X account and persuaded a mobile phone store to issue him a SIM card associated with that person’s phone number, according to prosecutors. By obtaining control over the individual’s cellphone number, he was able to retrieve access codes for the SEC’s X account, which he subsequently shared with others who accessed the account and posted the misleading information, as detailed by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors revealed that Council was compensated in bitcoin by his accomplices, accumulating around $50,000 through this illicit operation. Prior to his arrest, his internet search history reportedly included inquiries such as “how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI” and “federal identity theft statute.”