Blockchain intelligence firm CipherBlade has accused the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of using flawed investigative methods and thus overestimating the extent of alleged money laundering via crypto exchange ShapeShift. CipherBlade’s analysis of the WSJ report was published in a blog post on March 20.
As reported, the WSJ published a lengthy exposé in fall 2018 that alleged ShapeShift had facilitated the laundering of at least $9 million via cryptocurrencies - purportedly more than any exchange with offices in the United States in the course of the Journal’s investigations. The WSJ had claimed that the exchange had processed millions of dollars in criminal proceeds, a high proportion of which were purportedly being converted into privacy coins such as Monero (XMR).
At the request of ShapeShift, CipherBlade undertook an extensive analysis of the WSJ’s investigation, concluding that the “$9 million ‘laundering’ claim was overstated by a factor of 4x.”CipherBlade thus states that the WSJ’s claims were necessarily distorted.

Monitored by CoinNess.com, from 00:00 to 10:00 on March 21 (UTC) , ETH tops the list of most capital inflows.
1. The Top 3 net cap inflows in the crypto market are: ETH (+$37.43 mln), OKB (+$11.75 mln), NEO (+$7.45 mln);
2. The Top 3 net cap outflows in the crypto market are: XRP (-$13.40 mln), XMR (-$7.59 mln), BTC (-$7.16 mln).
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Anders Fogh Rasmussen, previously both prime minister of Denmark and secretary-general of NATO, has joined blockchain identity startup Concordium as a strategic advisor.
In an announcement Wednesday (March 20), the Switzerland-based firm’s chairman, Lars Seier Christensen, said Rasmussen will play a “pivotal” role in the firm’s global expansion plans.

At least one scammer is reportedly gaming other users on the blockchain-powered event betting platform Augur by creating deliberately invalid markets, according to a Reddit thread published on March 20.
The reported scam entails a bad actor creating a predictions market that contains subtle contradictions or inconsistencies in its wording, which will ultimately lead to the market being declared invalid, and all staked funds thus being distributed evenly between betters.
Meanwhile, the creator of the purposefully invalid market bets on outcomes that are unlikely to win, having vouchsafed for him- or herself a guaranteed payout when staked funds are eventually redistributed.
Click 'Read More' for details.

In a live-stream interview with Laura Shin for the crypto journalist's Unchained podcast, Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin talked about the importance of the ETH price.
He said, "By now regulators know what cryptocurrency is and understand that coins have a price attached that fluctuates. They understand the blockchain and that developers can build applications on these networks, which can add a great deal of value to people’s lives. Even if people try to claim the price doesn’t matter at all, [regulators] are totally going to see through that."
"I can tell you what things are clearly important about why the price being higher rather than lower is good. One of them is obviously security. If the price is zero, then the network can’t be secure. That’s true in proof-of-work and proof-of-stake," he added.
The second reason he gave was the many blockchain projects in the Ethereum ecosystem that hold much of their funds in cryptocurrency. "If the price is higher, they’ll have more money to do the things they want to do…They’ll be better funded if the price goes up," said he.

CoinNess.com Market Index: HPB, $0.315, +12.96%.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said that the Ethereum network needs to process 100,000 transactions per second to be a viable platform in the future.
In an interview with Abra CEO Bill Barhydt, Buterin shared Ethereum's top 3 development priorities: "As far as the big problems, my top three at this point are probably scalability, privacy and usability. So scalability – the Ethereum blockchain right now can process 15 transactions per second. Really, we need 100,000."

One Redditor, who goes by the name @enriquejr99, asked a question that would make the headline for today: is Binance stealthily implementing margin trading?
Supposedly a programmer, the Redditor located two extra Booleans included in the Binance public rest API documentation, which was updated last week. After a preliminary analysis, the netizen found out that “all 482 trading pairs have spot trading enabled and margin trading disabled.” The check on status of spot trading makes sense in regard to streamlining a spot trade; however, it strikes odd that Binance, a crypto exchange with no margin trading offered on its menu, requires a status check on margin trading in its coding.
@enriquejr99 comes up with a cogent presumption, “this API update implies that Binance is considering the implementation of margin trading features.”
If Binance decides to expand its businesses to span across a broader spectrum of trading options, such a step falls within the realm of conventional wisdom. Other competitors such as OKEx, BitMEX, and Bitfinex, have profited from the high-volume markets, and there is no reason why the No.1 crypto exchange should leave the cake unattended.
The reaction from the community is intricate.
Some Twitter accounts lauded the idea of Binance going for margin trading, while some others voted with their feet, accusing it of fanning the flames of speculation, just like BitMEX.
“Bear market won't end until Binance offers margin trading. Come on CZ,” wrote one trader @TraderSeneca, who claimed to be a full-time trader since 1998.
The enthusiasm is not echoed by people who are intimidated by the potentially disastrous shorting, while some argued that shorting adds liquidity and liquidity is good. As for who might benefit from the trading market, some challenged that the decision would only serve brokers well with more fees, and no value will be added to the long-term development of the ecosystem.
ZHAO Changpeng, founder and CEO of Binance, patronized a question leveled at him, asking about the coding change in API and possible margin trading. He answered, “We future proof our API framework as part of our system upgrades.”
By “future proof,” the founder – also popularly known as CZ – may refer to the roadmap mentioned in the Binance white paper. In the “Future Rollout” session, the Binance team mentions that, “We will roll out the platform in roughly the following order: Spot trading; Margin trading; Futures; Anonymous instant exchange; Decentralized (on-chain) exhchange; and more …”
So the recent changes made to the Binance coding indeed paves the way for the future margin trading. However, the founder refused to give a definitive answer to a scheduled timeframe, “No dates.”
Twitter titan Luke Martin replied to the message, complimenting on the iteration pace of Binance, and commented that CZ had brought up the same topic in their previous podcast interview. “Looks like you weren't kidding during our podcast that this was in the works!”
CZ replied, “We are serious all the time, never make jokes... :)”
For those who fear margin trading as “reincarnation of Satan,” Binance is coming for it. Brace yourself because they never make jokes.

According to Tanya Abrosimova, analyst of FXStreet, BCH/USD has gained over 22% in recent 7 days. The upside may be limited due to technical correction. On the intraday level, BCH/USD is supported by SMA100 (1-hour) currently at $156.49. Once it is cleared, the downside is likely to gain traction with the next bearish target $152.90 followed by psychological $150.00. On the upside, the major short-term target is $160.00, followed by the recent high at $166.53. The ultimate bullish target at this stage is $170.00; however, the move towards that area seems less likely considering flat intraday RSI and an extended consolidation below recent highs.

As of 06:24 (UTC) on March 21, Coinhills statistics show that the US Dollar is the most traded national currency for Bitcoin, dominating 48.23% of the global fiat-to-Bitcoin market, followed by the Japanese Yen (40.43%), the Brazilian Real (4.44%), the Korean Won (3.12%), and the Euro (1.47%).

Justin Sun, the founder and CEO of Tron, has got one million followers on Twitter currently. Sun tweeted to say "First one in Crypto world to break through 1 million in Twitter."
CoinNess.com Market Index: TRX, $0.0229, +0.50%.

Citing statistics from alternative.me, Fear & Greed Index currently reads 62, seven units higher than that of yesterday, signifying the crypto market is sliding more towards the "Greed" end.
As per the index, a value of 0 means "Extreme Fear" while a value of 100 represents "Extreme Greed."

Lightning Labs has released a new feature aimed at improving the usability of the Lightning Network, a Bitcoin payment channel technology aimed at scaling the cryptocurrency.
Called "Lightning Loop," users will now be able to receive Bitcoin in increasing quantities without having to close and reopen new payment channels.
Click 'Read More' to know about the new product.

CoinDCX announced on March 21 that its crypto lending program called DCXlend has come out of the beta testing phase and is now fully launched. Five cryptocurrencies are supported: BTC, USDT, ETH, XRP, and BNB.

Bahrain-based Shariah compliant cryptocurrency exchange Rain just added XRP to its platform. The digital asset is one of a select number of cryptocurrencies approved by the Bahrain-based exchange, joining Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.

Filament, a provider of enterprise blockchain solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), has joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), a member-led organization that aims to advance enterprise blockchain deployments leveraging Ethereum-based technology.

According to the real-time analysis on BTC of CoinNess.com cryptocurrency analysis, as of press time, the Bitcoin (BTC) price has witnessed a continuous rise recently, which also attempts to touch the high points in the near term.
What is nice is that the BTC bulls are still accumulating more strength to make preparations for next skyrocketing. Furthermore, the coin's bottom has been elevated gradually. Both of two factors will be conducive to weakening the probability of retracement.
On March 20, the dominant cryptocurrency has climbed upwards little by little. The support level goes up to around $3,970, while its resistance level marks $4,050 as well as the previous high point of $4,200, the latter of which is hard for BTC to breach. If succeed, the largest cryptocurrency will gallop ahead. When BTC breaks through the $4,200 level and stands on the level stably, a rebounding trend will be confirmed further. After this, the next pressure level will be $5,400, which will light up investors' way. From the perspective of BTC price's overall performance, bullish trends will hold on. From the view of multiple indicators, BTC remains the ascending channel on the 4-hour chart. On the daily chart, the 5-day moving average (MA) increases slowly. In addition, the same condition also occurs to the middle Bollinger Band (middleBB). It seems that BTC will begin its jumping.
CoinNess.com Market Index: BTC, $4,082, +1.12%.

Citing a tweet by @ETCDEV, the Emerald Command Line v0.25.0 has been released.
CoinNess.com Market Index: ETC, $4.71, +1.46%.

Morgan Creek Digital (MCD) and Ikigai decided to join hands on March 20, issuing a press release to reveal that they had formal partnership.
Morgan Creek's digital asset branch, headed by partners Mark Yusko, Anthony Pompliano, and Jason A Williams, will be anchoring Ikigai's cryptocurrency hedge fund, which will enlist long-short equity strategies and venture stakes in promising firms. The nominal value of this sum was not divulged.

According to the official announcement, Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. will conduct a resident test of power-to-person transactions in March 2019. Named "NEXT 21," the pilot test will verify the application of blockchain tech in the energy transactions between the company and the customer.

As of 03:00 (UTC) on March 21, the global average price of Bitcoin (BTC) continues rising slightly and has gradually climbed to $4,080, currently marking $4,084.14 with an increase of 1.17% in the past 24 hours.
The CoinNess.com Bullish vs Bearish Indicator shows our four-hour technical bias is "Strong Buy" with no indicator sending out a selling signal, three showing a neutral signal, and 13 indicating a buying signal.
The broad market has changed to an uptrend, with 27 out of Top 100 cryptos dropping.
The global market cap reads $141.50 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $33.51 billion.
Major Coins
1. BTC quotes show $4,040.50 USDT on Binance, $4,126.60 on Bitfinex and $4,028.65 on Coinbase Pro;
2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $140.58 (+0.31%); XRP marks $0.320 (+0.45%); LTC marks $60.87 (+0.75%); EOS marks $3.75 (-0.45%); BCH marks $160.91 (-0.22%); ETC marks $4.68 (+0.40%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies
1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: GXC (+23.27%), RVN (+18.10%), ONT (+17.83%);
2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: REPO (-18.56%), INB (-11.98%), ABBC (-7.34%).
Top Gainers and Losers in Categories
1. Top 3 gainers among 47 categories: Notarization (+14.36%), Sharing Economy (+10.59%), and Gold Chain (+10.35%);
2. Top 3 losers among 47 categories: Bank Card (-2.32%), Crowdfunding (-2.24%), and Energy Service (-1.87%).
Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges
1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+$470.05 mln), OKB (+$91.67 mln), LTC (+$89.35 mln);
2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: EOS (-$87.34 mln), BCH (-$44.13 mln), NEO (-$42.79 mln);
3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$16.04 mln), Bitfinex (+$17.26 mln), Coinbase Pro (+$7.41 mln).

Market trends of blockchain and cryptocurrency are examined to make predictions. CoinNess.com will study market trends-related consumer behavior, employment, blockchain tech advancements, new product development, competition, government norms and other factors that impact the bull and bear of blockchain and crypto industry.
Bull:
1)OKEx launches its stablecoin, OKUSD
Star XU, founder of a prominent crypto exchange OKEx, disclosed the launch of the stablecoin and tweeted to say, "Stablecoin will be one of the most important application of blockchain. And we're excited to announce that we'll soon launch our stablecoin, OKUSD."
2)Avnet supports BTC and BCH
The Major US electronics company Avnet has become the latest major enterprise to begin accepting payment in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. The company announced that it will allow customers to pay for goods and services using Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Crypto payment processor BitPay will facilitate the transactions.
3)Amun launches XRP Index Product
Amun AG, the world's first physically backed ETP (exchange traded product) based on five leading cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, BTC Cash, XRP and LTC), launched XRP index product.
4)Binance lists ZEC
Binance will open trading for ZEC/BNB, ZEC/USDT, ZEC/PAX, ZEC/TUSD and ZEC/USDC trading pairs on March 21 (UTC).
Bear:
1)OKEx BTC futures contract: short > long
As of 00:00, March 20 (UTC), among the rich accounts of OKEx Bitcoin quarterly contract, the proportion of long positions (21.46%) reports a shortage off that of short positions (26.63%), with a larger reverse gap of 5.17%.

Facebook's blockchain recruitment drive continues, as the social network looks to hire a lead commercial counsel for its initiatives with the technology.
A new job posting at the company's career page says the position will be responsible for "drafting and negotiating a wide variety of contracts related our blockchain initiatives, including partnerships needed to launch new products and expand such products internationally."

CoinNess.com Market Index: ZIL, $0.019,+3.55%.

Monitored by CoinNess.com, from 00:00 to 02:00 on March 21 (UTC) , BTC tops the list of most capital inflows.
1. The Top 3 net cap inflows in the crypto market are: BTC (+$7.26 mln), NEO (+$2.95 mln), QTUM (+$2.68 mln);
2. The Top 3 net cap outflows in the crypto market are: DASH (-$5.86 mln), ETH (-$5.23 mln), XRP (-$3.96 mln).
For more alerts on real-time market changes, add your portfolio at "Watch List" to enable the Intelligent Market Monitor, seizing more investment opportunities.

After months of silence, compromised exchange Cryptopia has emailed its customer base with information about its January 14th breach, its current operational status, and its plan to compensate users who lost funds.
Click 'Read More' for the full text of its email.

According to the official news, Cardano 1.5 has been released on the Cardano mainnet on March 20.
Cardano 1.5 is important in preparation for moving to the Shelley development phase. This update brings a new consensus protocol, Ouroboros BFT, which is a key step in the transition from Ouroboros Classic, the current consensus protocol running the Cardano network, to Ouroboros Genesis, the protocol for the Shelley era.
CoinNess.com Market Index: ADA, $0.0534, +2.79%.

"Bitcoin cash (BCH) is online and available now on all our ATMs," Switzerland-based Crypto ATM operator Värdex Suisse announced in a tweet. Its website shows 26 ATM locations in major Swiss cities such as Bern, Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lucern, and Lausanne.
The company's devices support the purchase and sale of three other leading cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH and LTC.

South Korea's leading crypto exchange Bithumb will activate the trading of GXChain (GXC) at 06:00 (UTC) on March 21. Bithumb will simultaneously launch the GXC Trading Challenge, from March 21-23, with a bonus pool of up to 100,000 GXC.
The GXChain team vows to expand its business into the South Korean market and to form partnerships with the local community. At the current phase, GXChain received multiple applications from Korean investment & research agencies to sign up for GXChain TrustNodes election.
Going beyond South Korea, GXChain will continue to ramp up its commitment into overseas community and developers. More cooperation deals are to be finalized.
CoinNess.com Market Index: GXC, $1.24, +23.40%.

On March 18, IBM announced that six international banks signed letters of intent to adopt IBM World Wire technology on their respective infrastructures. IBM World Wire is a payment network developed by IBM based on the Stellar public blockchain that allows banks to mobilize funds almost instantly and explore other financial services such as the creation of their own networks and even issuing native stablecoins.
Of the six banks, three have been identified by the CoinDesk team: RCBC from the Philippines, Banco Bradesco from Brazil, and Bank Busan of South Korea. The remaining ones have not yet publicly disclosed their involvement.