The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission has released the Investor Bulletin: 10 Investment Tips for 2019 on Feb 12. The SEC has suggested investors check whether an offering is registered with the SEC by using the SEC's EDGAR database or contacting the SEC's toll-free investor assistance line at (800)-732-0330. According to SEC's statement, "Any offer or sale of securities must be either registered with the SEC or exempt from registration. Otherwise, it is illegal. This has taken heightened importance with the advent of initial coin offerings as many of these offerings may involve securities. Registration is important because it provides investors access to key information about the company's management, products, services, and finances."
Click "Read More" for the original release.

VeChain, which boasts a market cap of $229 million, is currently among the top-performing coins, having added 6% in the last 24 hours to $0.0041. The VeChain project recently expanded its North American and European teams in response to overwhelming demand from developers. Arnaud Bauer, Dimitrios Neocleous, and Jason Rockwood joined VeChain last month, the team announced in a blog post on Feb. 16. They will provide support to "VeChain ecosystem builders, including enterprise partners, developers, [and] community contributors" and will serve as a liaison between these groups and VeChain for connections and resources.
CoinNess.com Market Index: VET, $0.004, (+4.92%).

A VISA spokesperson confirmed that fees would indeed go up in April, but only for merchant banks. The latter are financial institutions such as JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America that maintain accounts for sellers such as Amazon and other large retailers. According to the Wall Street Journal, up to 2.5% of the value of goods and services is used to cover transaction fees. This in turn means that if the hike is implemented, the merchants might decide to pass over the new costs to consumers.
One is tempted to exclude BTC when comparing transaction costs, but when we consider the recent implementations of the Lightning Network and SegWit, the network has become less costly when transacting. One researcher put the median transaction cost on the BTC network at around $0.02 via a tweet.
Click "Read More" for the tweet details of Bitcoin transaction fees.

According to the Public Daily, on February 15, at the second meeting of the 12th session of the Shandong Provincial Political Consultative Conference. WEI Zhiqiang, member of the Shandong Provincial Political Consultative Conference and dean of the School of Information Science and Engineering of the Ocean University of China, said in his speech that blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data are triggering a new generation of information technology innovation and industrial transformation. It is recommended that Shandong develop blockchain technology incorporating with its top layer industrial design and the five major projects.

Iran's new gold-backed cryptocurrency "PayMon" will be technically based on the Stellar Lumens (XLM) network (which is an open-source codebase), and will trade in "special exchange offices." These details emerged during a Sputnik interview with Hamid Reza Shaabani, founder of Iranian blockchain company ArzDigital.

LTC has seen an uptrend and set a new high of $44.26 USDT. Now LTC marks $43.91 USDT (+5.10%) on Binance.
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Chicago-based crypto exchange ErisX has filed a comment letter with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in response to the agency's request for feedback on Ethereum (ETH)'s mechanics and market.
The letter, submitted on Feb. 15, sets forth the exchange's belief that "the introduction of a regulated futures contract on Ether would have a positive impact on the growth and maturation of the market."

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin and other core developers have dismissed allegations that a new smart contract creation feature set to be released in the forthcoming Constantinople hard fork will have negative security implications. The discussion was held during a Ethereum core developer call on Feb. 15.
Click 'Read More' for details.

The renowned rating agency Weiss Ratings tweeted to say, "Crypto venture funds are topping crypto hedge funds. We're seeing investors being more rational, as they're shifting from investing in tokens to investing in companies that do business by using these tokens."

Citing data from Coinhills, as of 13:23 (UTC) on Feb 16, 2019, the Japanese Yen remains the most traded national currency in the BTC-to-fiat market with a 50.48% market share, followed by the US Dollar with a 43.80% market share. The next three most traded national currencies are the Korean Won (1.94%), the Euro (1.23%) and the British Pound (0.73%).

Citing statistics from BTC.com, the mining difficulty of Bitcoin (BTC) now marks 6.06 T, and it's estimated that it will rise to 6.17 T in eight days and 18 hours. The current hashrate of the BTC network is 41.59 EH/s.
CoinNess.com Market Index: BTC, $3,636.72, +0.02%.

Craig Steven Wright (CSW) tweeted and said, "In the next 18 months, the blood flows. Altcoins start to be culled as the "decentralized" leaders are imprisoned one by one or flee on the lamb for financial fraud and associated crimes."

[Policy]
1. The Bitcoin ETF rule change proposal filed by NYSE Arca and Bitwise Asset Management was published in the Federal Register on Feb. 15, meaning the regulator has 45 days to make its initial decision;
2. Indonesia has introduced new legislation that recognizes Bitcoin (BTC) as a trading commodity;
3. Liechtensteinische Post AG, the country's official postal service, plans to offer cryptocurrency exchange services at their physical locations;
4. Canadian regulator rules crypto mining contracts can be classified as securities;
5. Norway's private city "Liberstad" issues its own cryptocurrency "City Coin."
[Cryptocurrency]
1. Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash are reportedly expanding to 10,000 points of sale throughout France via cooperation between Digycode and Ingenico;
2. A sum of 25 million XRP, worth $7.5 million, was transferred recently from the third richest XRP wallet to another wallet at 17:21 (UTC) on Feb 14.
[Exchange&Wallet]
1. Crypto exchange Nobitex announced that Iranian Rial (IRR) now becomes the 44th fiat currency to be tradeable with XRP;
2. Coinmama exchange suffered hackers' attack, affecting 747 million user records.
[Others]
1. In a filing to the U.S. SEC, Apple hints at its involvement in drafting of "Blockchain Guidelines" for the Responsible Business Alliance's Responsible Minerals Initiative;
2. Binance CEO ZHAO Changpeng pointed to the success of BTT as a sign that ICOs will make a comeback and remain a powerful new way for companies to raise money;
3. Eight illicit crypto-mining Apps have been removed from Microsoft Store;
4. The Japan Association of New Economy (JANE) has asked the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) to reduce the current tax rate for crypto trading income;
5. 41% of surveyees believe that institutional investors will only enter the ICO sector in the next five years, according to a survey conducted by GBBC;
6. Mobile gifting platform Swych announces cryptocurrency support starting from next week;
7. QuadrigaCX founder may have stored private keys on paper in safety deposit box;
8. JPMorgan Chase is reportedly facing an online banking and mobile outage across the United States.

EtherZero (ETZ) and QLC Chain (QLC) formally entered into a strategic partnership today, Feb 16. The two sides will conduct in-depth cooperation in technology development, community ecological construction, and development of resources.

Electricity of France (EDF) is a French electric utility company. An EDF Energy-backed community energy trading pilot is to start next month, allowing residents of a Brixton, a district of South London, to trade solar energy between each other.
Those energy trades will be enabled using blockchain technology, and a consumer-facing App has been produced to allow residents to access the trading platform.

As of 11:00 (UTC) on Feb 16, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) swings above $3,600 USDT on Binance, with the global index marking $3,636.93, with an increase of 0.15% within the past 24 hours.
The broad market shows a downtrend, with 59 out of Top 100 by the market cap dropping.
The global market cap reads $121.01 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $19.49 billion.
Major Coins
1. BTC quotes show $3,611.24 USDT on Binance, $3,693.60 on Bitfinex and $3,586.45 on Coinbase Pro;
2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $122.97 (+0.06%); XRP marks $0.302 (-0.05%); LTC marks $43.60 (+2.60%); EOS marks $2.81 (+0.05%); BCH marks $122.69 (+0.37%); ETC marks $4.12 (-0.15%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies
1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: ELF (+17.13%), HOT (+8.12%), AE (+7.11%);
2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: QNT (-14.52%), REPO (-8.81%), AOA (-7.24%).
Top 3 Gainers in Categories
1. Top 3 gainers among 49 categories: Vote Election (+15.56%), Wallet Service (+3.81%), E-Commerce (+3.50%);
2. Top 3 losers among 49 categories: Credit Investigation (-4.53%), Community Concept (-3.06%), Data Service (-2.88%).
Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges
1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+$392.99 mln), TMTG (+$54.72 mln), OMG (+$53.35 mln);
2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: ETH (-$49.95 mln), EOS (-$31.65 mln), GNT (-$29.12 mln);
3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (-$5.39 mln), Bitfinex (+$1.91 mln), Coinbase Pro (-$3.31 mln).

Monitored by CoinNess.com, from 00:00 to 10:00 (UTC) on February 16, LTC had a net cap inflow over $20 million.
1. The Top 3 net cap inflows in the crypto market are: LTC (+$27.12 mln), BTC (+$22.90 mln), ETH (+$11.23 mln);
2. The Top 3 net cap outflows in the crypto market are: USDT (-$1.78 mln), BNB (-$1.15 mln), BSV (-$372 K).
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JPMorgan Chase, the most notable American multinational bank across the globe, is reportedly facing an online banking and mobile outage across the United States. This news breaks through days after the largest bank in the United States announced that they would be stepping into the cryptocurrency space by launching its own digital currency, JPM Coin.
Click 'Read More' for details.

Citing data from Etherscan.io, the Ethereum network currently sees 29,090 pending transactions, showing a stable and less congested network.
CoinNess.com Market Index: ETH, $123.37, +0.38%.

Norway's first private city, Liberstad, aims to focus on the individual rather than government, and will be utilizing a cryptocurrency called "City Coin" for its residents to encourage efficiency and transparency. This is the first cryptocurrency to ever be adopted by a "smart city," per a press release published on February 12, 2019.

As observed by CoinNess.com, statistics by CoinTrendz.com show BTC was mentioned 58 times on Twitter in the last hour, holding the first position. The top 10 mentions of cryptocurrencies also see ONT at the fifth place, the price of which increased by 16.41% in a 24h period. The full list is as follows: BTC (58 mentions), XRP (45), ETH (34), LTC (28), ONT (16), TRX (16), EOS (14), HOT (14), BCH (13) and NEO (12).

The crypto markets have continued to gradually drift lower following last Friday's market surge. Most cryptocurrencies have dropped today, with Ethereum trading down marginally, and XRP dropping nearly 2% due to concerns regarding the newly announced JP Morgan crypto (JPM Coin) possibly being a competitor. Many analysts now expect major cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin and Ethereum, to see increased selling pressure in the near-term as these cryptocurrencies fail to break above their respective resistance levels.
Click 'Read More' for details.

A Dallas-based mobile gifting company Swych announced it will be accepting cryptocurrencies for payments. Starting next week, instead of using traditional payment processors, Swych users will be able to pay using decentralized digital assets such as BCH, LTC, ETH, BTC, and ETC.

On February 15, Coinmama was informed of a list of emails and hashed passwords that were posted on a dark web registry. The security team is investigating, and based on the information at hand, Coinmama believes that the intrusion is limited to about 450,000 email addresses and hashed passwords of users who registered until August 5th, 2017. This comes as part of a larger breach affecting 24 companies and a total of 747 million user records.

Citing statistics from alternative.me, Fear & Greed Index currently reads 43, five units more than the same level as yesterday, signifying the crypto market is in "Fear."
As per the index, a value of 0 means "Extreme Fear" while a value of 100 represents "Extreme Greed."

Canadian regulator Financial Markets Authority of Quebec (AMF) says cryptocurrency mining contracts can fall under securities regulation. The announcement comes in response to a request that the investors of a cryptocurrency mining firm contact the AMF regarding $300,000 of unrecovered investments.

Jimmy Song, a well-known Bitcoin developer and entrepreneur, did a live stream a few days ago explaining why he considered Bitcoin SV, the Bitcoin Cash fork promoted by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, to be a scam.
Reason 1: Craig Wright is a known scammer;
Reason 2: There's almost no development activity around Bitcoin SV;
Reason 3: The behavior of Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre is "Peculiar".
Click 'Read More' for details.

Chinese blockchain platform NEO will open an office in United States city of Seattle. The new office will be headed by ex-Microsoft executive John deVadoss. The NEO Global Development (NGD) Seattle office will open and begin recruitment this month, purportedly allowing the company to expand into the U.S. market. Per the press release, the NGD has been developing partnerships with Microsoft and other companies.

As of 03:00 (UTC) on Feb 16, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) went up to $3,630, with the global index marking $3,633.16, with a increase of 0.22% within the past 24 hours.
The broad market shows an uptrend, with 61 out of Top 100 by the market cap rising.
The global market cap reads $120.86 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $20.04 billion.
Major Coins
1. BTC quotes show $3,629.23 USDT on Binance, $3,683.90 on Bitfinex and $3,581.28 on Coinbase Pro;
2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $122.76 (+0.56%); XRP marks $0.302 (-0.19%); LTC marks $42.79 (+1.69%); EOS marks $2.80 (+0.73%); BCH marks $122.46 (+0.07%); ETC marks $4.15 (+0.29%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies
1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: ONT (+20.53%), ELF (+17.39%), MCO (+13.17%);
2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: R (-5.80%), XEM (-4.86%), AION (-4.30%).
Top 3 Gainers in Categories
1. Top 3 gainers among 49 categories: Vote Election (+12.23%), Cross Chain Technology (+5.25%), Wallet Service (+4.97%);
2. Top 3 losers among 49 categories: Crowdfunding (-5.13%), Data Service (-4.34%), Supply Chain (-3.49%).
Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges
1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+$427.60 mln), BTG (+$115.47 mln), TMTG (+$58.34 mln);
2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: ETH (-$49.95 mln), EOS (-$31.65 mln), GNT (-$29.12 mln);
3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$4.48 mln), Bitfinex (+$6.91 mln), Coinbase Pro (-$5.30 mln).

According to the Twitter of Coinbase, Zcash (ZEC) has become the latest program of Coinbase Earn, users can gain $3 worth of ZEC through particular missions such as viewing educational videos.