The blackout in Venezuela caused a drop in the total volume of Bitcoin traded and according to some reports, these volumes fell by 40%. Citing this development, Frances Coppola, known for criticizing cryptocurrencies, claimed Bitcoin and its industry would be crippled without electricity.
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies remain nascent technologies that need time to mature and use cases to present. The tweet by Coppola received backlash from Bitcoin enthusiasts.
@kyletorpey, a writer, commented, “Good thing the legacy banking system runs on unicorn farts. Would be fine when the electric grid goes down.”

According to TRON’s weekly DApp report published on March 15, gambling and high-risk ROI DApps remain active while others such as collectibles games, board games, PVP battling games, card games, and puzzle games have only survived for a limited amount of time.
This led Tron to realize that there is a gap between what the developers are working on and what the market is pushing for.
An excerpt from the report reads: “On the one hand, we need to acknowledge the exploring endeavors of the developers; on the other hand, we have to respect the choice of the market.”

Banking startup 2gether is launching a prepaid Visa debit card that allows users to pay with either euros or any of the following seven cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), EOS, Stellar (XLM), and Litecoin (LTC). Free of extra service fees, the card can be used in any of the 19 euro zone nations, the company said.

According to fnnews, a mainstream financial media outlet in South Korea, Kakao is integrating crypto for its 44 million local users.
Kakao is the biggest internet conglomerate in South Korea that operates KakaoTalk, KakaoPay, KakaoTaxi, KakaoStory, KakaoStock, and many other platforms that have overwhelming dominance in their respective markets.

The Brazilian website of E-commerce giant Mercado Libre, Latin America’s most popular e-commerce site by number of visitors with 267.4 million users registered on the company’s marketplace, has announced a ban on all crypto-related listings.
The ban will take effect on March 19, prohibiting users from engaging in any transactions involving cryptocurrencies, including pre-paid cards and cryptocurrencies used in games.
According to a survey conducted by Mercado Livre and Criptomoedas Fácil, Brazil has over 11,173 ads related to XRP, 5,638 ads related to Bitcoin and 2,636 related to Ethereum.
Previously, PayPal has invested $750 million in Mercado Libre.

The chief executive officer of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman, discussed cryptocurrency and blockchain, among a number of subjects, in an interview with CNN. In the interview, Mrs. Friedman expressed bullish optimism for the future of cryptocurrency, stating “Do I think digital currency plays a role in the economy of the future, I think the answer is probably yes.”
Mrs. Friedman added, “But I do think the idea of a more globalized payments mechanism that’s more efficient than what we have today, that allows money to transfer cross country, and […] support[s] the Internet economy... feels like it’s the right next step in the space of currency.”

The Ledger Nano S from French crypto hardware wallet firm Ledger has received a First Level Security Certificate (CPSN) from France’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI.
The CPSN certificate covers a gamut of core embedded security functions, including a true random number generator, which is created via hardware and then post-processed through BOLOS, in compliance with security guidelines established in France’s Security General Referential.
Other CPSN-certified security functions include a root of trust — which ensures that a given Nano S is authentically issued by Ledger — end-user verification measures, such as mandatory PIN numbers for accessing services, and post-issuance capability, which occurs over a secure channel.

[Policy]
1.Tel Aviv District Court rules that the Union Bank of Israel can’t close crypto miner’s account, but it could still refuse the company’s requests to deposit fiat money if it is coming from anonymous exchanges.
[Cryptocurrency]
1. During the recent Ethereum core dev meeting, the team decided to move ahead with the roadmap created by Afri and continue working on the Istanbul upgrade, which is likely to go live in October 2019;
2. Current BTC blocks generate 93% fewer transaction fees than that in June of 2017, where the block size was level with the current ones.
3. There are now 4,423 Bitcoin ATMs installed across 77 countries;
4. There are 87 EOS referendum polls are undergoing.
[Exchange&Wallet]
1. gate.io now supports US, Japan and Canada customers to buy Tezos (XTZ);
2. Hacked crypto exchange Cryptopia may be reopened by the end of March, with its website in testing phase now.
[Others]
1. The South Korean Seoul Medical Center would officially build a blockchain-based "Smart Hospital" service system in April, which will be completed by December of this year;
2. Fu Tian Subway Station of Shenzhen City, in South China, issued the very first blockchain-based invoice;
3. Daniel Larimer, aka BM, said in the EOS Telegram group that voting only matters when there are real choices and an educated public;
4. Half of the pending patents have been filed by only seven companies  - IBM (143), nChain (112), Walmart (54), Intel (54), Alibaba (49), Mastercard (48) and the Bank of America (46);
5. VISA is building and strengthening a ‘VISA Crypto Team’ by hiring staff equipped with crypto knowledge;
6. Citi scrapped its plan for a JPM Coin-like bank-backed cryptocurrency, explaining that there were other more effective and efficient ways of making improvements in payments.

Between March 11th and 20th (UTC), the second round of CNNS campaign in 2019 is ongoing! 
Collect CNNS via multiple tasks across the board, and later redeem the tokens into USDT at a ratio of 100 CNNS : 1.5 USDT!
Any CNNS obtained from CoinNess App and official Telegram groups are granted eligibility to be redeemed as USDT, and the maximum amount of redeemable CNNS is 3,000 each person while the minimum is 140 CNNS. 
Participants can file an application for redemption with @CoinNessBot in the designated official Telegram group at any time between March 11th and 20th (UTC). 
For whoever participates in our campaign, please beware that you are allowed only ONE chance of such an application throughout the ten-day slot. Redeemed USDT will be distributed your digital wallets within 3 business days after application.
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Bitcoin clocked highs above $4,000 over the weekend and closed last week on a positive note, strengthening the short-term bullish outlook.
The ongoing recovery rally, however, could pause around $4,000 or fall back to key support levels lined up at $3,775 and $3,658, as the bearish (downward sloping) 21-week simple moving average (SMA) is currently lined up at $4,073. That SMA served as a stiff resistance last year.
Bitcoin’s outlook as per the daily chart would turn bearish if prices see a UTC close below the Feb. 27 low of $3,658. That would open the doors for a re-test of lows near $3,300 seen at the end of January.

As of 11:00 (UTC) on March 18, the global average price of Bitcoin (BTC) still stays near the $4,000 level, currently marking $4,020.42 with a decrease of 0.13% in the past 24 hours. The CoinNess.com Bullish vs Bearish Indicator shows our four-hour technical bias is "Neutral" with eight indicators sending out a selling signal, four showing a neutral signal, and six indicating a buying signal.
The broad market turns bearish now, with 75 out of Top 100 by market cap in a downward channel.
The global market cap reads $139.10 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $28.90 billion.
Major Coins
1. BTC quotes show $3,966.27 USDT on Binance, $4,049.50 on Bitfinex and $3,950.24 on Coinbase Pro;
2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $139.13 (-1.02%); XRP marks $0.316 (-0.56%); LTC marks $59.84 (-2.61%); EOS marks $3.74 (-1.35%); BCH marks $160.33 (+5.34%); ETC marks $4.40 (-1.23%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies
1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: R (+7.71%), MANA (+3.96%), BCH (+3.53%);
2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: XUC (-9.13%), AGI (-7.21%), ENG (-6.74%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Categories
1. Top 3 gainers among 48 categories: Social Communication (+10.36%), Agriculture (+9.04%), and Cross Chain Technology (+7.47%);
2. Top 3 losers among 48 categories: Sports (-60.66%), Market Prediction (-18.33%), and Real Estate (-5.77%).
Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges
1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+$454 mln), LTC (+$166 mln), ETH (+$112 mln);
2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: BCH (-$132 mln), PAX (-$71 mln), NEO (-$36.40 mln);
3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$12.80 mln), Bitfinex (+$235.64 k), Coinbase Pro (+$924.89 k).

Citing data from DApp Total, during the last week, EOS had the best performance in number of DApp users and transactions, while TRON DApps saw the largest trading volume among the three main public blockchains, i.e., Ethereum, EOS, and TRON.
1. User number: EOS (131,856) > TRON (89,236) > Ethereum (29,601)；
2. Transaction number: EOS (18,476,649) > TRON (13,504,310) > Ethereum (358,623)；
3. Trading volume: TRON (342,747,217) > EOS (106,922,649) > Ethereum (21,094,578).
In addition, the top 3 DApps by user number across the EOS, TRON and Ethereum chains are: Endless Dice (EOS), EOSABC (EOS), and BingoBet (EOS); the top 3 DApps by transaction number across the EOS, TRON and Ethereum chains are: 888Tron (TRON), TRONbet (TRON), and Dice (EOS); the top 3 DApps by trading volume across the EOS, TRON and Ethereum chains are: 888Tron (TRON), TRONbet (TRON), and Poker EOS (EOS).

Security firm PeckShield revealed that from 08:46 to 09:18 (UTC), a hacker used the attack method of transaction blocking (CVE-2019-6199) to antagonize EOSVagas, an EOS-based gambling DApp, to make profit successfully after hacking into EOS Cube.

Cryptopia, the New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange has been working on updating its system to start afresh, after two hacks crippled the exchange in January 2019.
Cryptopia also announced that the team will be sending emails to all users impacted by the hack. The mail in question, appeared to be a clarification about the hack, and addressed allegations of it being an exit scam.
The exchange informed users that they were planning to go active by the end of this month, and concluded by saying, “We will be emailing you again shortly with more details around the rebates and the projected dates for trading to be active again. Please be aware, we are hoping to achieve this by the end of the month.”

Monitored by CoinNess.com, from 00:00 to 10:00 (UTC) on March 18, DASH registered a net inflow of $8.09 million in the past 10 hours.
1. The Top 3 net cap inflows in the crypto market are: DASH (+$8.09 mln), ETH (+$6.14 mln), NEO (+$5.76 mln);
2. The Top 3 net cap outflows in the crypto market are: LTC (-$27.38 mln), BTC (-$19.44 mln), EOS (-$15.87 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.

Union Bank of Israel, Ltd. (TASE: UNON), the sixth largest Israeli bank, will not be allowed to close the account of local cryptocurrency mining company Israminers Ltd. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Limor Bibi has ruled that the bank’s sweeping policy of prohibiting the opening of an account for any customer working with digital currencies is unreasonable. However, the bank could still refuse the company’s requests to deposit fiat money if it is coming from anonymous exchanges in order to remain in compliance with the banking system’s AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) legal requirements.

According to a new hiring announcement for a technical product manager, VISA is building and strengthening a ‘VISA Crypto Team’ by hiring staff equipped with crypto knowledge.
The job requirement for a ‘Technical Product Manager’ was posted in ‘smartrecruiters.com’ a job portal wherein the description of a job reads that the new product manager will be a part of ‘VISA Crypto Team’.
As a product manager on the Visa Crypto team, this person will have responsibility for executing Visa’s product strategy within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Upon hiring, the person will be worked at its Palo Alto office and subsequently responsible to report the affairs to the Head of Crypto within Visa’s Fintech Product group.

Statistics gathered by monitoring resource Coinlib showing capital inflow into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies puts the Chinese yuan (CNY) in the top entry currencies.
For the 24 hours to press time, CNY inflows into Bitcoin topped the equivalent of $165 million, with Ether, the largest altcoin, seeing just under $75 million during the same period.
That performance puts China second out of the fiat entry assets, predictably behind the US dollar, while by far the largest inflows come from cryptocurrency stablecoin Tether.

In light of the splash JPMorgan made recently with its plan for a bank-backed cryptocurrency, it’s worth remembering another big institution first tested a token to connect global payments – back in 2015.
Codenamed “Citicoin,” the project out of Citigroup’s innovation lab in Dublin was never formally announced by the bank, even as a proof of concept. The idea was to streamline global payment processes. As such, there are obvious parallels with the much-vaunted JPM Coin.
However, having taken stock of the experiment (not to mention the scorn of the bitcoin community at that time) Citi concluded that, while the technology has the potential to live up to its promises, there were other more effective and efficient ways of making improvements in payments.
That’s according to Citi’s current innovation lab chief, Gulru Atak, global head of innovation for treasury and trade solutions.

Bitcoin perma-bull Tom Lee of Fundstrat tried to buttress his recent projection that the Bitcoin price is due for a major rally soon.
On March 17, Lee tweeted that the “tailwinds” that had dragged Bitcoin down during the current Crypto Winter are easing. Specifically, Lee claims that “macro factors such as a rally in risk assets plus the US dollar no longer surging are tailwinds for BTC.”
Lee also noted that the recent rallies in the S&P 500 and small-cap stocks are greater than two standard deviations. He then suggested that this means the Bitcoin price would rise to $10,000 to $20,000 if BTC were to “catch up” to equities.

CoinNess.com Market Index: ENJ, $0.22, +34.71%.

Craig Steven Wright (CSW), a chief scientist at nChain, holds the opinion that lightning will never be currency. “Lightning is in no way a clearance and settlement system. It is a payment system,” he said.
In an article titled ‘Why Lightning Will Never Be Currency, And Why BSV Matters,’ CSW explained that lightning does not act “as an intermediary solely between BSA regulated institutions.” Bitcoin networks may be covered by settlement and clearing exemptions, but they are not registered clearing systems and do not extend to allowing Lightning Network nodes. “Part of the problem is that Lightning is not a settled transaction. Bitcoin remains settled within blocks. Lightning conversely acts to update a series of promissory notes,” added CSW, who emphasized that “it really doesn’t matter that Bitcoin is not currency under the act. It further doesn’t matter in the US whether it is a security or commodity for both are covered.”
To read the full article, click ‘Read More.’

The federal government of Australia on Monday, March 18, announced a funding injection to boost the country's blockchain industry. With AU$100,000 in tow, the government wants to see the development of a national blockchain roadmap, which, according to Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews, will focus on a number of policy areas including regulation, skills and capacity building, innovation, investment, and international competitiveness and collaboration.

According to Dailymedi, South Korean Seoul Medical Center said on March 17 that it would officially build a blockchain-based "Smart Hospital" service system in April, which will be completed by the end of this year.

Citing data from Etherscan.io, the Ethereum network currently sees 12,698 pending transactions, showing a stable and less congested network.
CoinNess.com Market Index: ETH, $139.62, -0.39%.

Bitcoin's user growth, as represented by active addresses, has spiked in the last eight weeks leaving the price far behind. The divergence between active addresses and Bitcoin's price has become quite large.
What's more, Bitcoin's transaction volume appears to track prices more accurately, but since the number of active addresses is also a valid reflection network usage, it's worth viewing how the interplay between the two impact Bitcoin's price, if at all.

Citing statistics from BitInfoCharts, the average size of Bitcoin (BTC) blocks is similar to that of June of 2017; however, the transaction fee is far lower than the aforementioned period. A mind-boggling 93% is deducted, from $4 of 2017 June to current $0.295.

GXChain launches its first 3D mobile gaming DApp, Block Pirate, on March 18. The pre-sale of its game token is activated simultaneously.
Developed by North American blockchain game development studio Block Kingdom, Block Pirate innovatively incorporates the rules of classic Tower Defense games and the community mechanism of collectible card games, based on GXChain.
According to third-party statistics, the early-birds have concluded deals of nearly one million RMB.
Block Pirate beta will be released in early April and will support Blockcity account login and GXC payment. Subsequently, GXChain will introduce more DApps that reflect values and interests of blockchain in a multi-dimensional way and continue the route of high-quality blockchain application.
CoinNess.com Market Index: GXC, $1.02, +12.74%.

Citing a local report, Fu Tian Subway Station of Shenzhen City, in South China, issued the very first blockchain-based invoice.
Starting from March 18th, users of Tencent-affiliated smart transport applications can have their invoices registered on blockchain within the Apps. The services go beyond subways to also include taxi, airport shuttle bus, etc.

Citing a report by Diar chief analyst Larry Cermak, half of the pending patents have been filed by only seven companies  – IBM (143), nChain (112), Walmart (54), Intel (54), Alibaba (49), Mastercard (48) and the Bank of America (46). Out of more than 1,000 reviewed patent applications, only about 10% have been granted.
IBM has applied for more than 100 blockchain-related patents in the last six months. Walmart and Alibaba have also been active.