Cointelegraph’s statement about the false news of the Bitcoin ETF published the other day

Cointelegraph’s false news of BlackRock’s Bitcoin spot ETF approval yesterday led to a sudden spike in the price of Bitcoin and the liquidation of more than $100 million in trading positions in less than an hour. Now, this website has released a statement, while apologizing to its readers, explaining the events that led to the unconfirmed publication of this news.

According to the statement, Cointelegraph’s social media team, during news coverage the other day, released a news release without prior confirmation from Platform X that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had issued a license for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF.

According to Kevin Telegraph, the results of the investigation show that their standard procedure for publishing breaking news on social networks, according to which the credibility of news sources must be verified before publication, was not followed. According to this statement, the process of events that led to the publication of this false news is as follows:

At 16:47 Tehran time: Cointelegraph’s editorial team learned about the rumor through a Telegram channel they use to find interesting news for their readers. The full text of the conversation is shown below. (Image 01)

At 16:49 Tehran time: Employee #1 posts the text of the news in an internal Slack channel (Figure 02), which was previously shared by an account that has since been deleted. (Image 03)

At 16:54 Tehran time: In an attempt to get the news out as quickly as possible, employee number two posted the report on Platform X without the editor’s validation of the source. Cointelegraph emphasizes that this decision violated the rules of publication of content in Cointelegraph’s social networks, according to which, verification of the source and approval of the editor is required before publishing the news.

17:18 Tehran time: Readers reported this issue to Cointelegraph through social networks. (Image 04)

17:22 Tehran time: During an internal chat among Cointelegraph employees, employee number one noted that the source of the news could not be traced. (Image 05)

17:24 Tehran time: Cointelegraph employee #3 edited the message on the X platform to clarify that this information has not been verified. (Image 06)

17:33 Tehran time: Cointelegraph will remove this post after contacting BlackRock and Bloomberg Terminal. (Image 07)

18:02 Tehran time: After receiving confirmation from Blackrock that this news is false, Cointelegraph retracts its initial tweet and issues the following statement: (Image 08)

In closing, Cointelegraph noted that it will thoroughly review its social media management processes to ensure this does not happen again, particularly when it comes to verifying breaking news before publication.