On 13th October this year, the token swap of the ICX will only be made possible in two methods. The first one being the ICX holding that is on Upbit, Binance, Huobi, OKEx, Bithumb or the DragonEX. The second method is manually swapping the tokens through the ICONex. CoinNess.com Market Index: ICX, $0.699, +12.77%.

Gary Gensler, the former chairman of the U. S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has recently affirmed that most of the Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) made since last year have created tokens that can be a considered a form of securities.

The amount of Venezuelan bolivars being spent to purchase Bitcoin has risen to record levels as the South American country experiences unprecedented hyperinflation and a worsening economic crisis. Bitcoins worth nearly 900 million bolivars have been traded so far this week in Venezuela, and this is already higher than last's week volume of slightly over 850 million bolivars.

Corry Johnson is Ripple's chief market strategist whose main job is to create public awareness about Ripple and XRP. According to Corry Johnson's interview with the Breaker Magazine, Ripple has been in talks with the Trump administration, and the White House seems to be in a really good mood to support the company's business ventures. CoinNess.com Market Index: XRP, $0.457, +12.37％.

The New South Wales (NSW) government of Australia is looking to make property conveyancing electronic, turning to distributed ledger technology as a means to make the practice cheaper, more reliable, and more secure. The NSW Land Registry Services will be conducting a proof of concept with Stockholm-based ChromaWay, built on the startup's open source technology. Under the state government directive, from the start of the new financial year, all mainstream property transactions in NSW must be lodged electronically and all paper-based Certificates of Title will be cancelled.

According to the official Twitter account of CoinDesk, Tether releases statement on USDT drop and said, "We would like to reiterate that although markets have shown temporary fluctuations in price, all USDT in circulation are sufficiently backed by U.S. dollars (USD) and that assets have always exceeded liabilities."

According to a Poland-based research, Bitcoin's relatively stabilizing prices are a marker that the currency is gaining global acceptance, edging closer to being a regular market. The report, called "Bitcoin market route to maturity? Evidence from return fluctuations, temporal correlations, and multi-scaling effects", states that BTC is now on the verge of being a valid competition to Forex markets. Please click "Read More" for details of the report.

Trevor Koverko, CEO of Polymath, believes the slow death of ICOs is opening the door for the next big revolution in the crypto space – security tokens. With regulation stalling, and the growing realization that it's necessary if cryptos are to be accepted by the mainstream, security tokens are inevitable.

DZ Bank is one of the most talked after bank in Germany. It is the second largest bank in the country by asset size as well as the central institution. Now DZ Bank AG is considering Ripple interledger protocol. The bank has listed a couple of slides in their recent report.

The CEO of Bakkt, Kelly Loeffler said that the digital market is fragmented like the energy market in the early 2000s. The CEO of Intercontinental Exchange's (ICE) was the pioneer attracting more and more institutions to trade energy, which is what created today's liquid market. She added that, "we're about to see a revolution on the same scale in cryptocurrencies."

The World Energy Council (WEC) and PwC interviewed 39 companies/organizations to understand the maturity of blockchain technology in energy and its potential and impediments. In a newly released report, Blockchain in Energy, the WEC spoke with traditional oil and gas companies, regulators and utilities to better understand the blockchain hype. Their findings include: 1. Feasibility and scalability of technology is a challenge, but those interviewed believe that "with time, testing and refining of the technology will be crossed"; 2. Blockchain in energy is in its infancy; 3. The blockchain is not the only solution – other options include Faraday Grid; 4. Regulation and customer engagement needs need to adapt and "reframed".

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has opened an office in Dublin, said the exchange, joining the growing ranks of banks and financial firms with major British businesses developing European Union outposts as Britain's exit from the bloc looms. Cryptocurrencies are largely unregulated in Europe, but Coinbase is licensed to provide fiat currency-related services across 23 EU countries. Many customers deposit fiat money - currency that a government has declared to be legal tender - at Coinbase before buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

The agenda will be financed by National Housing Fund under Finance Act 2018 with a three per-cent contribution by employers and employees, borrowing, issuance of asset-backed securities to investors and rental revenue from current available housing stock. Housing and urban development PS Charles Hinga said the fund will raise Sh6 billion a month translating to Sh55 billion a year to unlock the supply side of projects.

CoinNess.com Market Index shows that BTC has continued to slide and currently trading at $6,542.13 on Binance.

CoinNess.com sees that the number of unconfirmed transaction on Ethereum has reached 78,650, indicating a congestion of Ethereum mainnet. CoinNess.com Market Index: ETH, $206.76, (-4.45%).

Check Point's researchers detected a near 400% increase in crypto-mining malware attacks against iPhones. The surge was seen in the last two weeks of September, when attacks against users of the Safari browser also rose significantly, the organization said in its report. Click "Read More" for complete report.

Terrence Dempsey, Head of Product at Fidelity Labs said in a statement that "One of the ironies of what it takes cryptocurrencies to become mainstream is that in order for institutions to deal with them it requires some extent of centralization, some intermediary.”

Leading South Korean financial holding company KB Financial Group Inc. has been awarded a patent for a blockchain-based fintech app security solution, South Korean economic news outlets The Digital Times reports Monday, Oct 15. KB Financial is reported to have over $342 billion in assets under management and presides over multiple overseas and domestic subsidiaries, among them KB Kookmin Bank, the country's largest bank and also the 60th largest bank globally as of 2017.

Blockchain-oriented firm XYO Network recently partnered with RE/MAX México to leverage distributed ledger technology (DLT), an umbrella term that also touches upon blockchain, for real estate management processes. RE/MAX México, a leading real estate brand in Mexico, intends to use the technology for record-keeping. The company hopes that it would streamline its business processes by putting the transaction data on a blockchain, thus securing title deed issuance and property management.

Status.im, the mobile Ethereum client built entirely on peer-to-peer technologies, announced today that it has received $500K from the Ethereum Foundation in order to continue research and developed on the Ethereum 2.0 client, Nimbus. This is the fourth wave of the Foundation's scalability research and development subsidy program.

Dan Pantera, CEO of Pantera Capital and Chairman of Bitstamp said in a statement that "I think the ETF is years away, and it's going to be something for qualified investors: you don't want it to be in tiny retail unsophisticated hands."

LiveJasmin, an adult live streaming website, today announced its collaboration with PumaPay, a blockchain project that developed a unique billing infrastructure called the PullPayment Protocol. PumaPay enables recurring payments, users can easily pay their subscriptions with cryptocurrencies and ensure their anonymity, while merchants can save on card transaction fees and avoid chargebacks. LiveJasmin is planning to adopt it as a crypto payment solution for all its websites, including payments to its models, studios, and affiliates.

As of 20:00, Bitcoin is trading at a premium against tether on exchanges with USDT/BTC trading pairs. On Bittrex, for example, 1 BTC is trading for over 6,700 USDT. On Binance, Coinbase Pro, Kraken and Gemini, Bitcoin is trading at roughly $6,400 against USD pairs, an indication that bitcoin's proper asking price is much lower than its oft-cited USDT pair would advertise. This has led to an inflated price averaged on CoinMarketCap of $6,650. The broad market see mixed tradings with 26 out of Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap declining. The global market cap marks $210.32 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $21.9 billion. Major Coins 1. Coinness Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $206.87 (+3.52%); BCH marks $459.56 (+2.91%); ETC marks $9.77 (+2.03%); LTC marks $55.36 (+3.87%); XRP marks $0.44 (+5.04%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: AOA (+26.94%), DGD (+19.04%), BCN (+13.03%) ; 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: NAS (-8.34%), DGTX (-7.43%), LOOM (-5.07%). Coins/Exchanges Inflows and Outflows 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: BTC (+$178.83 mln), DASH (+$85.36 mln), ZEC (+$69.98 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: USDT (-$6.46 mln), VIAT (-$5.18 mln), MMCC (-$3.97 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$55.96 mln), Bitfinex (-$2.85 mln) and Coinbase Pro (-$5.17 mln).

Dr. Nouriel Roubini is on a roll with scathing criticism of the crypto space. On Monday, Dr. Roubini continued with a scathing series of tweets, following a previous engagement with Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin. The critical attitude follows a lengthy testimony to the US Banking and Finance Committee in Congress.

David Veal, CIO at the City of Austin said in a statement released by Coindesk: "I'm not sure crypto assets need to be positioned as an alternative asset, we should see how it fits into existing portfolios. It can eliminate illiquidity by making so many thing liquid."

Tether, the company that issues the most well-known stablecoin has, not for the first time, found itself in the headlines. On Monday, the company's stablecoin, the USDT, dropped by as much as 15% as traders sold Tether and pushed the price of bitcoin BTC by 4.57% higher, so high it was trading at a 10% premium on popular exchange Bitfinex, the company that shares common investors and management with Tether, including Jan Ludovicus van der Velde. Most stablecoins trade at or around $1, often gravitating between 99 cents and $1.01.The rush out of Tether and into other cryptocurrencies came after Bitfinex said it was having processing issues that caused the company to temporarily pause fiat deposits. A week earlier, Bitfinex denied rumors that the company was insolvent.On most exchanges, the price of USDT fell below 90 cents on Monday.

Recently, the Vice President of American Express, Colin O' Flaherty, revealed that the company is teaming up with Ripple. Specifically, AXP would use Ripple's decentralized payment solution, called xCurrent. Colin broke the news during the Money 20/20 financial convention held in Amsterdam. O' Flaherty also serves as the general manager for AXP in both the UK and Russia. CoinNess.com Market Index: XRP, $0.4412, (+5.59%).

Airsoft Technologies has collaborated with blockchain startup PumaPay, which provides an open source billing protocol that allows merchants to process crypto payments, as the ‎brokerage technology developer expands coverage to the ‎crypto world.

According to CNBC, Fidelity Investments has launched a new company for its institutional clients that will trade and store digital assets such as bitcoin, the asset manager said on October 15.

Japanese electronics giant Sony has developed a new blockchain-based digital rights management system that may see commercial rollout. According to a press release from the firm on October 15, the system will help manage copyright-related information for digital content, citing educational content as a prime use case. The firm states that, with content rights management currently largely being carried out manually by industry organizations or the creators themselves, its new system is designed to make that process more efficient.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has been announced as a co-founder of recently launched blockchain-focused venture capital fund EQUI Global, global business outlet Verdict reports Monday, Oct 15.

As the price of BTC spiked since 05:00 (UTC), the global crypto trading volume has grown to a three-week high of $21.14 billion.

Smartphones have made video games more engaging than ever. iCandy Interactive, an Australian listed mobile games developer, has recognized this exciting and expanding market. For its latest offering, iCandy Interactive has employed blockchain technology to create CryptantCrab. Based on the hobby of raising pets, the game allows players to use artistically designed crabs they can collect, mutate, do battle, and trade with.

Liquid just tweeted to announce, "Deposits and withdrawals of $UBTC are currently disabled to accommodate an upgrade to the protocol. Services will be resumed once the upgrade is complete." CoinNess.com Market Index: UBTC, $3.49, +4.19％.

Bobby Lee, CEO of BTCC, just tweeted to say, "It would be a huge problem if the supposed $USD price of $BTC on CoinMarketCap actually mixes in prices from $USDT based exchanges. What is that index price based on? Any official comments from them? Is there a straight answer?"

U.S government enforcement defense and securities lawyer Jake Chervinsky tweeted to say, "My only point is, if you're in the 'Tether is a scam' camp, there are more explanations for the BTC/USDT premium available to you than simply 'the peg is finally breaking and Tether is about to implode.'" ‏

BitPay, a bitcoin and blockchain payments provider, announced the option for merchants to receive settlement in Circle and the CENTRE USD//Coin (USDC) and the Gemini Dollar (GUSD), which are both stablecoins pegged to the US Dollar.

Carlson Tong Ka-shing believes Hong Kong needs a more robust regulatory framework for cryptocurrency trading. The soon-to-be former head of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has called for greater emphasis on investor protection in the volatile virtual currency trading arena. Click"Read More" for more details.

Citing statistics from TokenInsight, BTC balance of on-chain memory addresses reduced by 13,940 within three hours from 11:00 to 14:00 (UTC) on October 15. Normally, such change should be under 1,000 BTC for the same time period. As an important dimension to measure the value of BTC, cap inflow to memory addresses means investors accept the quoted price of BTC. Otherwise, investors think there are bubbles. According to the independent analyst James, BTC's price surge this early morning may lead to Bitcoin whales' dumping their assets. CoinNess.com Market Index: BTC, $6,880.42, +8.01% Be advised of high volatility. Trade with caution.

CoinNess.com Market Index: CMT, $ 0.121898, +3.11%.

Cobra, co-owner of Bitcoin.org and Bitcointalk.org, tweeted on October 15 that Blockstream coin should not be referred to as "Bitcoin Liquid" or "LBTC". "To prevent user confusion, it should be called Blockstream Coin, or BLiquid," said Cobra, who will therefore henceforth refer to tokens on that sidechain as "BLiquid" and recommend everyone else do the same.

CoinNess.com Market Index: BTC, $6,884.11, +8.14%

The Block just tweeted and said, "We can confirm that Binance paused all Tether ($USDT) withdrawals for 30 minutes and that they just reopened the Tether withdrawals after a short maintenance period." The Block then added, "According to a person familiar with the matter, Binance's $USDT maintenance occurred in order to increase the speed of withdrawals amidst heightened volume."

As reported earlier by CoinNess.com, TRON had inked a partnership with Baidu. Here follows details of the widely watched cooperation between the two firms. According to China's local news outlet Odaily, the cooperation will provide TRON with the opportunity to build, operate and test blockchain products based on Baidu Cloud while helping guarantee compatibility and optimize development experience. However, the focal point of this collaboration lies not in blockchain, but in the purchase and usage of Baidu’s Cloud computing resources. Meanwhile, the blockchain team of Baidu Cloud will disclose a new plan dubbed "Commercialized Blockchain Super Partner Plan 1.0" in the near future to explore blockchain tech, share gains and establish a win-win blockchain ecosystem with its commercial partners. Baidu Cloud Chain is built on ABC+blockchain stack and Baidu "x" Chain, providing simple full-stack blockchain commercialization solutions for enterprises. CoinNess.com Market Surveillance: TRX, $0.02, +3.26%

Charity Game Master, LLC (CGM), a Pre-ICO crypto technology company, announced today that it has signed an "onboarding retainer agreement" with the award-winning custom software development firm, The SilverLogic, to begin creating the "Charity Network," which will be the first of five platforms in CGM's multi-platform ecosystem.

CoinText.io, a service to transact Bitcoin Cash (BCH) using SMS messages, launched in Turkey and Argentina where cryptocurrency is growing in popularity due to increased volatility in their local currencies.

As observed by CoinNess.com, statistics by CoinTrendz.com show BTC, ETH and XRP led the Top 3 most mentioned cryptocurrencies on Twitter in the last hour. The full list is as follows: BTC (2,787 mentions), ETH (1,536), XRP (1,069), LTC (1,050), TRX (789), EOS (777), XLM (755), NEO (749), BCH (549), and USDT (478).

Binance CEO CZ responded to a twitter user Soros Shorts, "Waiting for more people to take advantage of this arbitrage opportunity, ie, buy more PAX or TUSD using fiat. It will bring the price back inline, and increase the total supply. We can't open a market for a stable coin that only has $24m market cap."

Kibo Sushi announced that it's teaming up with T.OS, a leading digital currency company, to develop a blockchain payment system for the Canadian food service industry.

Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak announced that he has become the co-founder of EQUI Global, a technology-focused venture capital Fund combining the conventional principles of investing with a crypto backend that allows value to be realized and traded in the open market through the EquiToken.

KuCoin announced that it will list TrueUSD (TUSD) and open the TUSD market. According to the announcement, deposits for TUSD is now open. the TUSD market will open three trading pairs. BTC/TUSD, ETH/TUSD and USDT/TUSD trading pairs will be added on October 15, 2018 at 22:00 (UTC+8). Withdrawals for TUSD will open on October 17, 2018 at 20:00 (UTC+8).

CoinText.io, a service to transact Bitcoin Cash (BCH) using SMS messages, today launched in Turkey and Argentina where cryptocurrency is growing in popularity due to increased volatility in their local currencies. CoinText enables sending money to mobile phone numbers or BCH addresses while doesn't require Internet, apps, accounts or passwords. As reported by CoinNess.com last week, CoinText had previously launched its service in Hong Kong, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

CoinNess.com reported earlier on October 15 that the EOSBet Dapp had been hacked again and the stolen funds were locked by Bitfinex. According to the security firm PeckShield, hackers made use of a vulnerability related to payee verification in the EOSBet contract and stole 138,319.7995 EOS from eosbetdice through fake transfer notifications. From 05:27 to 05:38 today, an account read ilovedice 123 sent out more than a dozen noticeable transfers to varies exchanges. 72,150 EOS flew into Bitfinex, and 65,100 EOS flew into Poloniex. Based on the current price of EOS, which is $5.47, EOSBet suffered a loss of over $5 million this time. Last month, a series of smart contract exploits saw hackers abscond with over $600,000 worth of EOS. An official announcement from EOSBet explained the manner in which the attack was executed - by exploiting a flaw in smart contract code, the hacker was able to place bets without transferring EOS to the contract, while still capturing payouts from successful predictions.

Gogo Business Aviation has announced it has introduced Gogo DASH, a toolkit that offers visibility into the Gogo network and connectivity systems installed on their aircraft, the company said. Gogo DASH is comprised of the DASH mobile app and DASH portal and provides information for a single aircraft or an entire fleet.

Binance CEO CZ tweeted to say, "Learned today, short term, launching a fiat exchange that required months of work had less positive impact than FUD about USDT (a single photoshopped fake announcement) on BTC price. But I also know for a fact, long term, hard work wins. Keep building!"

Plattsburgh, New York, is considering bringing in stricter requirements on commercial cryptocurrency mining farms operating in the city. Patrick McFarlin, a councilor of Plattsburgh's Common Council, proposed a new law last week that aims to introduce "zoning regulations" for commercial crypto mining activities. According to an update from the council Friday, a public hearing will now be held on Oct. 25 to determine whether to follow through with the proposal. Click"Read More" for more details.

With an aim to help Blockchain technology fulfill its potential of facilitating job creation for the new economy in the country, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has formed a Blockchain committee. The group will identify opportunities and challenges and work with government, industry and startups to develop the ecosystem. The committee will be chaired by Tina Singh, Chief Digital Officer, Mahindra Finance and co-chaired by Prasanna Lohar, Head –Innovation and Architecture, DCB Bank Limited.

As of today, USDC have been added to OKEx, Poloniex, CoinEx and KuCoin. Launched by Circle last month, the stablecoin USDC is pegged 1:1 to the greenback. CoinNess.com Market Index: USDC, $1.07, +5.94%

Bakkt just tweeted to announce, "We're thrilled to announce that we will welcome Adam White as Chief Operating Officer of Bakkt in November. As reported by CoinNess.com, Adam White, former vice president of Coinbase, is joining Bakkt, the cryptocurrency venture at ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

A bug that chain-split ethereum's Ropsten testnet has been identified and fixed within hours. As it was guessed, it had something to do with a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) that adds efficiency gains to gas calculations with only Parity seemingly affected. Click "Read More" for more details.

Goldman Sachs and Raymond James slashed their 12-month forecasts for Netflix on concern about rising interest rates eating away at the valuation of the high-flying internet company, which reports earnings Tuesday after the bell. Goldman laid out a pretty bullish case for the earnings in a note to clients Monday, but said it would "lower our 12-month price target from $470 to $430 to reflect the contraction in broader internet multiples." Goldman's Heath Terry said Raymond James remains "bullish" on Netflix "as upside drivers to revenue remain large" and "negative catalysts," such as the competitive threat of other streaming services, "appear low."

Nouriel Roubini, also known as "Dr.Doom" for predicting the outburst of 2008 financial crisis, tweeted to say, "wealth in the crypto universe is even more concentrated than it is in North Korea. Whereas a Gini coefficient of 1.0 means that a single person controls 100% of a country's income/wealth, North Korea scores 0.86, Bitcoin scores an astonishing 0.88. BTC inequality is worse than NK."

As observed by CoinNess.com, statistics by CoinTrendz.com show BTC, ETH and LTC led the Top 3 most mentioned cryptocurrencies on Twitter in the last hour. The full list is as follows: BTC (2,887 mentions), ETH (1,449), LTC (975), XRP (914), TRX (851), XLM (696), EOS (682), NEO (591), USDT (583), and ETC (432).

[Policy] 1. Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is exploring ways to regulate the various cryptocurrency trading platforms already operating in the city and thus tighten investor protection. [Cryptocurrency] 1. An alleged "consensus issue" in the testing of a planned hard fork of Ethereum, called Constantinople, has caused a testnet to be not usable. [Exchange] 1. Fiat-to-Crypto exchange of Binance Uganda will support the deposit of Ugandan shilling from October 17; 2. Bitfinex announced that all cryptocurrency and fiat withdrawals are, and have been, processing as usual without the slightest interference. [Others] 1. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted on October 13 and said, "Great dinner last night with David Beckham talking crypto and bay area tech." 2. Nasdaq may launch a security token platform for regulated ICOs; 3. Daniel Larimer, also known as BM, announced that the 1 TB RAM machines is undergoing test; 4. Zebpay incorporates new companies in Malta and Singapore, which may start operating in Europe.

Crypto news media NullTX announces a partnership with NulleX – a privacy-centric cryptocurrency. NullTX's founder Marat Arguinbaev, will also be joining the NulleX team as an advisor, officially supporting the project.

CryptoUK, a self-regulated trade body of seven exchanges, said regulation should focus on exchanges, brokers and trading platforms rather than the cryptocurrencies themselves, and said HM Treasury should grant the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) new permissions to govern crypto investment. The group wants the FCA to issue crypto-licences to approved platforms and enforce new requirements,including appropriateness checks on investors, anti-money laundering rules and operational standards.

Cybercriminals seem to be increasingly concentrating their significant firepower on businesses and their treasure troves of data rather than on individuals, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes. The company today released its Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques report for Q3 2018, which found that detections of cybercriminal activity targeting businesses rose 55 percent in the quarter, compared to Q2 2018. For context, such detections only increased 4 percent for consumers. Also, the report says malicious crypto mining has gradually fallen as Bitcoin's price has plunged. Such attacks dropped 26 percent in the quarter, according to Malewarebytes. The lower profits from mining Bitcoin are likely dissuading some from launching such attacks, the report says.

PayFair.io, a person-to-person cryptocurrency trading site, just tweeted and announced, "PayFair.io has just launched NANO to over 35 different FIAT currencies! This marks PayFair as the first decentralized escrow to feature more than 25+ crypto to 35+ FIAT Pairings!" CoinNess.com Market Index: NANO, $1.89, +3.13％.

Ali Kutlusoy, a cryptographic puzzle creator and cryptocurrency enthusiast, has structured a 137.036 XRP as a reward for solving one of his advanced puzzles, which is free and available for all. The first one to decipher the cryptic puzzle can transfer the fund into their wallet. According to his set of rules, the puzzles are tested extensively and the answers will not be published until someone deciphers it. Click"Read More" for more details.

Mike Dudas, the founder of the Block, just tweeted and said, "Bitcoin will be the long term 'stablecoin'."

Citing hourly statistics from Searchain.io, Bitfinex saw a consecutive outflow of ETH every hour before 05:00 (UTC), October 15 due to negative sentiment of the crypto market. As of now, ETH withdrawals from Bitfinex today are at a mid-low level in a seven-day period.

Blockchain startup Adhara, which boasts a stellar line-up of former banking innovators, has secured $15 million in new funding from Consensys, the ethereum design studio. The funding will help Adhara continue its work on international payments, which includes introducing central banks to the type of cryptography normally confined to math labs and academic circles.

Chamath Palihapitiya, the outspoken Silicon Valley tech investor, called the start-up economy a charade on Wednesday. "We are, make no mistake … in the middle of an enormous multivariate kind of Ponzi scheme," said Palihapitiya, at the Launch Scale conference in San Francisco. Palihapitiya also slammed the start-up cycle of raising funding rounds and spending money to boost user growth to attract bigger funding rounds.

Earlier on today, the South Korean exchange of Bithumb launched its very own decentralized exchange. According to the announcement, Bithumb's Decentralized Exchange (DEX) was officially launched on October 15, 2018 at 2 pm (UTC+8). Bithumb DEX was launched by Hong Kong-based Blockchain & Fintech BGEX Ltd. Working with blockchain service innovator OneRoot Network, they are committed to discovering and listing more valuable cryptocurrencies.

As of 11:00 (UTC) on October 15, Bitcoin has dropped from a 24h high of $7,680 to $6,950. The broad market reversed a downward trend and currently 84 out of Top 100 cryptos by market cap are rising. The global market cap marks $213.36 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $19.21 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $6,973.50 on Binance, $6,929.90 on Bitfinex and $6,429.91 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $212.85 (+6.30%); BCH marks $464.70 (+4.55%); ETC marks $9.85 (+2.96%); LTC marks $55.12 (+3.52%); XRP marks $0.45 (+8.13%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: AOA (+29.02%), KNC (+20.03%), KMD (+17.92%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: DGTX (-11.17%), LOOM (-3.91%), ZRX (-3.52%). Coins/Exchanges Inflows and Outflows 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: BTC (+$309.42 mln), DASH (+$85.89 mln), ZEC (+$68.17 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: EOS (-$53.36 mln), NEO (-$11.03 mln), ETH (-$4.92 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$33.59 mln), Bitfinex (+$13.40 mln) and Coinbase Pro (-$7.47 mln).

Based in San Francisco, BlockStack is a startup that is aimed at creating a new network for decentralized apps that's why there is no surprise that decentralization has become a core idea of everything they do and are striving for. In its official blog, the company has published a new post titled "A Path to Decentralization", announcing its plan for decentralization of corporate governance. BlockStack co-founders Ryan Shea and Muneeb Ali stated in their post that their goal is to ensure that their corporate governance is decentralized as well as the way of working of their blockchain platform and app network.

Switcheo, a multichain decentralized crypto exchange has unveiled a preview of their all-new wallet manager that will better serve traders to manage their digital assets on the Switcheo Network. The new wallet manager is designed to optimize every stage of the trading process on the exchange. Switcheo told CryptoNinjas that they placed a strong emphasis on understanding the entire workflow of their users — right from connecting their wallets, up to the withdrawal of tokens.

CoinNess.com Market Index shows USDT currently marks 6.47 Chines yuan in Huobi's OTC market, which is about 6.5% lower than the real time exchange rate of the US dollar against the Chinese yuan.

Citing data from Meetup.com and Longhash, as of Oct. 14, 2018, there are 5,568 Bitcoin meetups held worldwide with approximately 1.65 million members registered. Local communities are most abundant in tech-centric areas like Palo Alto and Mountain View; the former boasts of the world’s largest Bitcoin meetup with 35,000 members and the latter finishes second with 15,400 members. Interestingly, no European city makes an appearance, while Indian I.T. hub Bangalore is the only Asian city on the top-ten list with 6,400 members, while other top cities include New York, San Francisco, and Toronto.

Alberto Isola, Gibraltar MOC, revealed that"After the introduction of the new legislation, we had 38 applications coming through. Now firms are coming out at the other end of the process and you can see the efficacy of that process – these are very well known, quality brands." He also said that the job as a judicial regulator is to ensure the sustainability of blockchain technology.

Reported by globenewswire, EPIC Corporation and Ronald S. Tucker announced "EPIC is now a financial holding company that develops and connects digital assets to the financial market place."

PassOn AG, a Swiss startup for asset transmission and storage on blockchain announced it has sold a minority stake to SIX, which owns and operates Switzerland's stock exchange. SIX's investment looks to create a strong basis for developing infrastructure aimed at bringing inheritance on blockchain.

Bitfinex has announced that launch of a new suite of reporting tools intended to help users gain greater control over their trades and give them useful insights into their activities on the platform. In a blogpost on its website, Bitfinex revealed that the tools are designed to enable users gain unlimited insights by viewing as much of their account data as they want, through the removal of requested data limits.

Citing statistics from TokenInsight, Bitfinex cold wallets of BTC sent out a total of 4,000 BTC in three transfers in the past 24 hours, with a balance of 135,697 BTC. BTC against USDT tradings are gaining popularity for the moment, as Bitfinex users are exchanging their BTC with USDT and leaving the exchange. Bitfinex's 24h trading volume currently marks $560 million (+296.13%), ranking the second by daily trading volume.

Craig S Wright just tweeted and said, "Permissionless and decentalised mean nothing to law. If you build something illegal, then you are liable. All systems have a person (people) behind them. There is no AI based oracle, all that exists is owned by a person and that person is liable. Blockchain does not change this."

Zebpay, which shocked the entire industry with a sudden announcement of closure about two weeks ago, seems to have some other plans in store. Based on the latest information coming out from company registration offices of Singapore and Malta it's looking that the company is now setting its eyes on the global game of cryptocurrencies (which is why it might've chosen to get out of India). Zebpay registered two new companies in the recent months, namely Awlencan Innovations Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) and Awlencan Innovations Malta Limited (Malta). The Singapore-based company was registered in May, while Malta-based entity has been registered on September 17 (10 days before the announcement of closure in India). If information filed with both these company registrars is to be believed, Zebpay is now looking all set to provide the services of cryptocurrency exchange and OTC trading in 20 European countries. Click"Read More" for more details.

EOS Cafe Block, a leading EOS block producer, announced that they discovered a vulnerability of the EOS smart contract and said that all parameters from notifications need to be explicitly checked.

Germany-base BayWa is using FinTech asset management firm RISE to hedge their own business against price fluctuations on the agricultural markets, as well as to gain a better understanding of the speculative market fluctuations. Hedge funds and high-frequency traders are arbitrarily changing the prices of soya, maize and wheat. BayWa is using RISE to hedge their own business against those fluctuations.

The SFC chairman said Monday in an interview that Hong Kong's securities and futures commission (SFC) is planning to introduce crypto regulation to protect investors. Chairman Carlson Tong Ka-shing, who will pass his position in the SFC to Tim Lui Tim-leung on Oct 19, said that the watchdog is not considering a ban on cryptocurrency platforms as the Chinese mainland has done, adding that they don't think that a total ban is "necessarily the right approach". He added, "It will not work in today's internet world when trading can cross national boundaries. Even if we were to ban them, transactions can still be easily conducted via platforms in overseas markets."

The depositing service will start on October 15, 09:00 (UTC), and trading against BTC and USDT will be available tomorrow at 06:00.

The crypto analyst and investor Joseph Young commented on what Bitfinex has done with Tether and its exchange, saying that it "could have been one of the most valuable billion dollar companies in crypto. Yet, it threw out the opportunity out the window and shot itself on the foot." Bitfinex announced earlier today on Twitter that all cryptocurrency and fiat withdrawals are, and have been, processing as usual without the slightest interference.

Match-Trade announced the release of the brand new product – Match2pay, a cryptocurrency payment processor gateway, which allows FX Brokerages to implement and integrate cryptocurrency as a payment option in their business model.

EOSBet received another hack on October 15, reported IMEOS. The stolen funds have been locked by Bitfinex, and the EOSBet contract has stopped services since 06:00 this morning.

Bitfinex announced on Twitter that all cryptocurrency and fiat withdrawals are, and have been, processing as usual without the slightest interference. On Thursday, October 11th, 2018, Bitfinex decided to temporarily pause fiat deposits (USD, GBP, EUR, JPY) for certain customer accounts in the face of processing complications.

Canadian firm Global Blockchain Technologies, listed with on Canadian Securities Exchange with the ticker BLOC, announced on Thursday that its subsidiary Hyperion Crypto Exchange partnered with Stellar to support Stellar-based assets on its exchange. Hyperion, co-founded by the current BLOC President and CEO Shidan Gouran, secured a $5 million investment from BLOC earlier this year. CoinNess.com Market Index: Stellar (XLM), $0.225602, +4.04%.

As observed by CoinNess.com, BTC continues to drop after it once jumped to $7,680. Now BTC marks $6,935 on Binance.

Payment giants MasterCard and VISA will soon group cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) jurisdictions in a new "high risk" category. According to the Broker Complaint Registry, some details of the shortly upcoming classification by MasterCard had already become public in May of this year. The registry notes that binary options, CFDs, forex, cryptocurrency options, and ICOs will fall under a new category of "High-Risk Securities Merchants" starting on Oct. 12, 2018, and will be subject to additional monitoring.

CoinNess.com Market Index: TUSD, $1.07, +4.90%; PAX, $1.06, +4.78%; GUSD, $1.02, +1.83%.

Seung-hwan Lee, CEO of CoinNess.com Korea, said at a conference that due to the bear market, the number of South Korean cryptocurrency investors has dropped from 3 million last year to today's 400,000, but the potential of South Korean cryptocurrency market is huge, and its policy owns potential advantages. In addition, he indicated that cryptocurrency has become a major investment method for young people in South Korea, and young investors are becoming increasingly discerning.