One of the biggest benefits of claiming a crypto loss is that tax payers can offset income gained from other sources, according to The Daily Hodl. Take the US for example. In the US, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) lets residents deduct up to $3,000 worth of net capital losses each year from the amount of money they have earned at their day job. If the amount a US resident lost was greater than $3,000, they can get another deduction of up to $3,000 when they file their taxes next year. If they currently make just over $50,000 per year at their job, that $3,000 cryptocurrency loss could place them in a lower tax bracket. This could result in thousands of dollars of tax savings. What's more, if they've earned some income through stocks or through the sale of property, there's no limit to the amount they can deduct from those revenues.

While some are wondering if the DPoS system is vulnerable to an ECAF attack, Daniel Larimer, lead developer of EOS, confirmed that "ECAF has no power unless producers and voters give it to them," reported IMEOS. "ECAF isn't a feature of DPoS," added Larimer. On talking about URI, he said that it isn't dead but part of a broader solution. Larimer also gave his answers to a question related to the recent development of the wallet, stating that they are working with external developers behind the scenes to prepare their apps for it.

Ryan Brienza, 19, who partially owns a cryptocurrency mining operation, Zafra LLC, in the city of Plattsburgh, said he could help save the city thousands of dollars on its electric bill. Brienza helped build a box that houses up to 100 cryptocurrency mining computers that solve complex math problems in order to get Bitcoin. A lot of heat is generated from the machines working nonstop, and Brienza wants to use the heat generated from the computers to heat city buildings like the Crete Center. Brienza said he's received preliminary support from the city. The only thing standing in his way is the city's moratorium on cryptocurrency mining, which the city council said it hopes to lift in the coming months.

A recent photo capturing the Paris riots caused by fuel tax rises, high living costs and other issues shows some "yellow vest" protesters printed the words 'Buy Bitcoin' on their back. France has seen four consecutive weekends of demonstrations against president Emmanuel Macron's recent policies. About 125,000 protesters took to the streets on Saturday, December 8, with more than 1,200 taken into custody.

As of 03:15 (UTC) on December 11, BTC remains fluctuating below the $3,500 level, with its global average price being $3,476.85. The broad market moves down further, with 8 cryptos out of Top 100 by market cap rising, The global market cap marks $110.10 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $13.11 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $3,410.10 USDT on Binance, $3,499.90 on Bitfinex and $3,381.72 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $90.98 (- 3.59%); BCH marks $105.67 (- 2.13%); ETC marks $3.92 (- 2.08%); LTC marks $24.61 (- 3.83%); XRP marks $0.3028 (- 2.81%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: BTCP (+ 5.30%), LOOM (+ 3.19%), LKY (+ 1.39%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: MANA (- 12.45%), DCR (- 11.97%), MGO (- 11.84%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Categories 1. Top 3 gainers among 52 categories: Internet of Things (+ 4.53%), Education (+ 2.84%), Dapp Platform (+ 2.68%); 2. Top 3 losers among 52 categories: Credit Investigation (- 14.55%), Advertising Concept (- 10.55%), Public Chain (- 7.90%). Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+ $215.04 mln), BTG (+ $158.44 mln), XMR (+ $30.20 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: GNT (- $103.56 mln), ETH (- $48.64 mln), BTC (- $48.44 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+ $3.32 mln), Bitfinex (- $16.44 mln) and Coinbase Pro (+ $1.18 mln).

Coin One Transfer, a subsidiary company of the South Korean crypto exchange CoinOne, announced the launch of a blockchain-based overseas remittance service dubbed Cross Chain. Coin One Transfer previously cooperated with SBI Ripple Asia in launching Ripple's xCurrent solution.

A set of overlapping rules and confusing requirements about cryptocurrencies are likely to hamper innovation in the American crypto industry, according to law professor Carol Goforth. Crypto assets are currently regulated in the U.S. as property by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as money by the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fincen), as commodities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and as securities by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Additionally, every single state has its own set of laws that may apply to crypto, and some have even adopted unique regulatory approaches towards the matter. The expenses associated with complying with all of these obligations can be prohibitive and time-consuming for U.S. crypto businesses such as exchanges. Moreover, with the added risk of investigations and enforcement actions, "it is easy to see why the U.S. is not regarded as being receptive to crypto," Goforth explained in her paper.

Amid a number of Chinese words selected as representatives for the year of 2018, blockchain has been shortlisted together with trade conflict (US-China trade war), Iran nuclear deal (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Saudi Journalist (Jamal Khashoggi), etc. Per Chinese press People's report, blockchain is a new application model based on computer technology that aims to solve transaction problems like trust and security. It represents a new direction of technology and offers a new opportunity to drive worldwide economic cooperation, the report wrote.

A new report reviewed that attackers have set off in motion a massive campaign that scans for Ethereum wallets and mining equipment with the standard port 8545 for the JSDON-RPC interface exposed online. This interface is a programmatic API that locally-installed apps and services can query for mining and funds-related information. The mass-scan campaign has been raging for at least a week, since December 3, but it wasn't taking place during an Ethereum price surge, according to Troy Mursch, co-founder of Bad Packets LLC, who also noted that the scan activity tripled, when compared to last month.

Southeast Asia is swiftly shaping into a blockchain hub, with most emerging and developed markets in the region firmly positioning themselves at the forefront by deploying blockchain-based products across a myriad of business verticals, reported The Asean Post on December 10, 2018. While the nations of Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and so on and so forth are seeing scattered cases of cryptocurrency and blockchain usage, blockchain technology is still in the early stages of integration in Lao PDR, Brunei, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Click 'Read More' for details.

Binance's CEO ZHAO Changpeng aka CZ gave insights on the Binance's new decentralized exchange, Binance DEX, which would operate on the Binance chain with native currency as Binance Coin (BNB) in early 2019 during a recent interview. CZ also said that the new decentralized exchange was similar to Ethereum's ERC20 tokens but it additionally allows you to trade between tokens like BNB.

According to analysis by research firm Diar published Dec. 10, the adoption of stablecoins is growing based on the increasing number of on-chain transactions. Per Diar, four major stablecoins to date — USDC, True USD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX) and the Gemini dollar (GUSD) — have broken the $5 billion mark in on-chain transactions within the three-month period. Diar notes that Paxos has recorded over $1.8 billion on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain alone during the past three months. The figure is reportedly double the number of USDC jointly developed by major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and blockchain payment company Circle.

According to real-time statistics from Asicminervalue.com at the time of publication, only five mining devices make a profit and two machines are not yet available on the market. The most profitable machines on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018, are manufactured by the corporations Ebang, Asicminer, Innosilicon, and Bitmain. Precisely, they are the Ebang Ebit E11++, the Asicminer 8 Nano and the Asicminer 8 Nano Pro, the new Innosilicon T3 model, and the Bitmain Antminer S15. Click 'Read More' for details.

Kenneth Rogoff, former IMF chief economist and current Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy, believes that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies currently amount to little more than "lottery tickets" at this moment in time. Writing in the Guardian on Monday, December 10, Rogoff stated that while some believe that cryptocurrencies have had their day and are on an irreversible downward slide, it is actually difficult to say with certainty that their value will actually fall to zero. Rogoff previously claimed that Bitcoin would be worth as low as $100 in ten years. He also spoke on the government involvement in the crypto sphere, warning that "people in power" will take care of regulating "anonymous transactions".

1. Bittrex will open a USD market for ZRX; 2. Huobi Global will allow withdrawal of MXC staring from 06:30; 3. bitFlyer will perform a scheduled system maintenance and all services will be unavailable for five hours from 04:00 to 09:00; 4. OKEx Perpetual Swap Trading will go live.

According to Poloniex's Twitter, it has listed FOAM and opened its deposit and withdrawal service. FOAM/BTC and FOAM/USDT tradings will be opened later on Dec. 11(UTC).

Jake Chervinsky expressed his views on VanEck's ETF application on Twitter, saying that"I think the ETF is in trouble. I'll explain why below, but first I want to stress that VanEck & SolidX have done great work this year. Unfortunately, some things are out of their control, and it's possible the markets just aren't ready for an ETF yet. The SEC had many concerns--enough for 18 multi-part questions. The most important question was about market manipulation. My prediction is based largely on the manipulation issue. I think the chance of ETF approval will go up over time as market structure continues to develop & more surveillance-sharing agreements are entered. The question is: how high can it go before the February 27 deadline?” Click 'Read More' for details.

London Block Exchange, a multi-cryptocurrency exchange dedicated to the UK market, announced the first ever digital pound sterling through its partnership with AlphaPoint, a global blockchain technology company focused on enabling institutions to issue digital assets and to operate digital asset exchanges. According to the London Block Exchange, GBP-Peg (initially announced as LBXPeg) is a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of pound sterling (GBP). The exchange noted that has a segregated, onshore, and auditable UK bank account dedicated to GBPP.

According to coincryptorama, hubii announced that it has joined forces with cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC.

Ripple says a new report on extended payment delays and errors on the traditional global payments network Swift paints a stark picture on the importance of crypto, blockchain and digital assets like XRP. A new exposé from The Guardian tracks four stories of people and charities getting thousands of dollars stuck in cross-border payment flows executed through Swift. Ripple's global head of strategic accounts Marcus Treacher tweeted about the new report, saying it reveals the need for a global payments infrastructure upgrade to create an efficient "internet of value." Click 'Read More' for details.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC surged by 1.05% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3436.69 on Binance.

Shinhan Bank has decided to use blockchain in their internal system in an effort to reduce the errors that could be caused by workers. The bank has been working on integration involving both cryptocurrency and blockchain for the last year and a half. During this time, they have also provided a program to their staff that allows them to learn more information about blockchain and the potential use cases.

The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX), has announced an insurance coverage policy in association with Callaghan Insurance to cover assets listed on the GBX Digital Asset Exchange (GBX-DAX), a secondary exchange for the trading of digital assets. Earlier this year, Gibraltar became the first jurisdiction to introduce a purpose built DLT regulatory framework, and this month the GBX was granted a full licence to operate by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commision (GFSC).

One of Ethereum's rising dapp that lets you natively borrow assets had an unexploited bug of an unclear nature according to its founder, Robert Leshner, who stated: "A member of the community alerted our team to a potential defect in the Compound protocol. After analyzing the report, we have confirmed that (1) there is a defect that was undetected in the audit process, (2) a potential exploit exists, (3) the potential exploit has never been used, (4) it's necessary to temporarily disable new borrowing, to eliminate risk to users.” The smart contract had two audits, one by Trail of Bits and another by Certora, according to Leshner. They apparently didn't catch this bug which is seemingly implied to be in the interest rate algorithm. Funds are safe they say and can be withdrawn as one pleases, with only a relatively small amount of 28,000 eth contained in the smart contract.

Those in the cryptocurrency industry who visit SVPool.com or who are interested in doing so may want to ensure that they are visiting the right website. There is an individual or group that has registered a common misspelling of the website. The duplicate site is SVPool.co. While this would seem to be a website name that many would avoid typing, it is actually the opposite. At the end of the day, most wouldn't notice the misspelling. Those who visit the fake website will reach an identical website to the real SVPool. However, upon clicking upon the website's pages, users will reach a 404 error. One platform went through the process of filling out the registration form on the fake website and reached the client area. Upon accessing the client area, the platform requested BTC in exchange for SV hashing power. Of course, such a system does not exist.

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has announced the completion of a pilot project called Project Castor which sought to explore the technical implementation and feasibility of using blockchain technology as the underlying market infrastructure for unlisted and over-the-counter (OTC) markets.

A member of UK parliament and self-confessed cryptocurrency enthusiast has spoken in favour of the fintech innovation. Eddie Hughes, MP, believes embracing the technology could help Britain thrive in the wake of Brexit and that the public should be able to pay their taxes using Bitcoin. Click 'Read More' for details.

According the IMEOS, eosDublin published an article on Medium named "Simply Important", saying that: "So I would like to propose we only put MEGAs up for referendum. These should solve multiple questions and provide a mandate and direction for the next 12–24 months. Here is our MEGA: 1. Pre-Approve REX implementation (once fully tested); 2. Ratify EOS New York — User Agreement (after another review cycle); 3. Approve $100k for the completion of development of https://workerproposal.com/; 4. Reduce Inflation to 2.5% overall and Seed fund $2m for the eosio.wps account from eosio.saving; 5. Mandate ECAF to limit scope to only smart contract disputes; 6. Allow ECAF time and funding (through eosio.wps) to clear the current backlog. (Doing this will allow them to show their capability and professionalism and provide them with a way to find their right place in the ecosystem or it will allow them to fail).

Digital banking platform Good Money just raised $30 million in a Series A funding round to continue developing its app. Led by Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Digital (via its Galaxy EOS VC Fund), participants in the funding round included Breyer Capital, Blocktower Capital, Boost VC, Ken Howery, BlockChange Ventures, Cross Culture Capital, Troy Carter, Mitch Kapor, Peter Diamandis Blake Mycoskie and Justin Rosenstein, among others. The startup aims to act as a bank through which every customer owns some amount of equity, with incentives baked in for those who install the app, refer friends and set up direct deposits.

Jesse Lund, VP Blockchain and Digital Currencies at IBM, says: "Good things take time friends. This is about disrupting (reforming) financial services by the people, for the people…And bank charters aren't as easy to get these days! Give them time; focus on the current buying opportunity, like most of the banks are quietly doing."

Dr. Pieter Wuille, a Bitcoin Core developer and co-founder of Blockstream, a firm focused on building software solutions for the Bitcoin protocol, has announced a new open-source project. Wuille' s new project will include contributions from other Bitcoin developers such as Greg Maxwell, Gleb Naumenko, among others. As explained by Wuille, the new project will focus on making improvements to "BTC transaction relay."

As of 18:00 (UTC) on December 10, BTC dropped to $3,500 level, with its global average price at $3,511.65. The broad market is in line with BTC's downtrend, with only 11 cryptos out of Top 100 by market cap rising. The global market cap marks $110.90 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $13.29 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $3,501.99 USDT on Binance, $3,536.00 on Bitfinex and $3,421.92 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $91.50 (- 6.06%); BCH marks $104.72 (- 5.84%); ETC marks $3.88 (- 6.27%); LTC marks $24.77 (- 6.83%); XRP marks $0.302 (- 4.82%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: DEX (+ 38.38%), CENNZ (+ 8.51%), MITH (+ 7.69%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: FCT (- 15.54%), KCS (- 11.32%), R (- 10.52%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Categories 1. Top 3 gainers among 52 categories: Dapp Platform (+ 3.57%), Education (+ 3.45%), DAG Technology (+ 2.48%); 2. Top 3 losers among 52 categories: Credit Investigation (- 10.77%), Advertising Concept (- 9.85%), Public Chain (- 6.65%). Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+ $177.86 mln), LTC (+ $168.20 mln), BTG (+ $139.55 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: ETH (- $75.52 mln), GNT (- $71.04 mln), EOS (- $65.63 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+ $3.28 mln), Bitfinex (- $11.67 mln) and Coinbase Pro (+ $1.25 mln).

According to the Twitter of Weiss Ratings, "Gemini announced support for BCH. BCH withdrawals will only be valid on the BTCABC blockchain, and any funds sent to the platform over the BTCSV blockchain will be invalid and irrecoverable. They shouldn't even be listing BCH. The only thing BCH has done was harming the BTC brand.

According to local media, the Central Bank of Kuwait announced plans to create a national cryptocurrency and payment system. The head of the bank, Dr. Mohammad Y. Al-Hashel, said that in 2019 and 2020, the Kuwaiti National Payment System (KNPS), which is being created in cooperation with banks and payment services, will be deployed in the country.

According to the Twitter of GitHub, it is planning a brownout of the deprecated "GitHub Services" webhooks on December 12th for a full 24 hours. Normal webhook deliveries will continue.

Calgary has become the first Canadian city to launch a digital version of its local currency. Known as the Calgary Digital Dollar, the digital currency will be used exclusively in the City of Calgary located in Alberta Province and will operate alongside the federal currency, the Canadian Dollar.

Vitalik Buterin has updated 15 tweets about his views on non-financial applications of blockchain. Click 'Read More' for the 15 tweets.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has announced that all of its oil exports will eventually be sold only in Petros (PTR), which will begin in March of 2019.

Six companies in developing and emerging economies will receive investment from UNICEF's Innovation Fund to solve global challenges using blockchain technology. The UNICEF Innovation Fund will invest up to $100,000 USD in the six companies; Atix Labs, Onesmart, Prescrypto, Statwig, Utopixar and W3 Engineers to deliver open-source prototypes of blockchain applications within 12-months.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC surged by 1.5% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3451.01 on Binance.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC dropped by 1.02% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3401.02 on Binance.

Jay Clayton, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has spoken of the advantages of initial coin offerings (ICOs) as a way to raise capital, with a significant caveat. In a speech last week, focused on reviewing the SEC's progress in 2018 and discussing the agenda for 2019, Clayton said "I believe that ICOs can be effective ways for entrepreneurs and others to raise capital." However, he added that securities rules must be adhered to where appropriate.

IronX, the new cryptocurrency exchange of foreign exchange broker IronFX, has hired two new people to its advisory board, according to an official press release. These two are Paolo Tasca, who once served as a blockchain adviser for the EU Parliament and the United Nations, and Tal Cohen, co-founder and ex-CEO of Sirin Labs.

A conservative member (MP) of the United Kingdom's (U.K.) Parliament has said that making payments to local authorities and utility providers with Bitcoin (BTC) should be possible. The MP's statements were reported by local news outlet Express.co.uk on Dec. 10.

Venezuela has been helping to enable wide scale Dash adoption and usage in Venezuela and recently filmed a video demonstrating that SmartCity, a Dash-enabled KRIP phone seller, has sold over "6 or 7,000 phones". Dash's partnership with KRIP has enabled their phones to come pre-loaded with a Dash wallet, Bitrefill, Uphold, some Dash on a paper wallet, and more. Dash Merchant - Venezuela has also partnered with KRIP to help consumers get their phones set up and ready to spend in minutes. This has allowed Dash to easily be adopted and spent in Venezuela.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC dropped by 1.38% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3431.88 on Binance.

According to IMEOS, the EOS-powered Dapp BetDice sets a new high for the 24-hour volume, which is approximately 28.83 million EOS, an equivalent to about $57.66 million. The 24-hour transactions record 1,010,514. CoinNess.com Market Index: EOS, $2.00, +4.25%.

TrustToken confirmed that Cohen & Company has published their latest independent attestation of the bank accounts holding the collateral for TrueUSD and revealed that Balance of Escrow Accounts is $195,050,843.

[Policy] 1. Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, said that the Russian parliament plans to adopt bills on digital assets by the end of the year; 2. Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro advises Vladimir Putin to buy oil in Petro. [Cryptocurrency] 1. CSW tweeted that he will show people how Bitcoin and any blockchain scales in January 2019, which, according to him, will be patented and licensed to Bitcoin SV exclusively; 2. F2Pool, the oldest-surviving mining pool in China, now supports AE mining. [Exchange] Coindesk published the Q3 2018 State of Blockchain report, which shows that Binance cryptocurrency exchange is thriving with over 51 million unique visitors; 2. BKEX will start the trading of TKC/USDT at 03:00 on Dec 11 (UTC); 3. Huobi Global and OKEx suspends the deposits and withdrawals of BTM due to system upgrade. [Others] 1. A subsidiary to Madison Holdings Group Limited (08057-HK) has bought in 67.2% shares of BITOCEAN Co. Ltd, a registered Japanese cryptocurrency exchange; 2. Bitmain shuts down its Israeli branch, and sacks 23 employees; 3. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has announced its successful collaboration with IBM, piloting a Blockchain-based automated system to integrate oil and gas production; 4. Facebook is advertising five blockchain-related positions on the careers page; 5. Barclaycard, a credit card and payment services provider and a division of Barclays, has announced its plans to explore the benefits of "self-sovereign identity" (SSI).

Bitcoin (BTC) still has the potential to drop towards $3,000, despite a minor bounce from 15-month lows seen on Friday, Dec 7. BTC risks falling to $2,972 (September 2017 low) in the near-term, according to the 3-day chart. Prices may rise to $3,800 if BTC clears the resistance at $3,540 in the next few hours. The bearish outlook, however, would be invalidated only if the descending 10-candle MA on the 3-day chart, currently at $4,250, is scaled.

As of 11:00 (UTC) on December 10, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) is walking slightly above the $3,500 USDT trendline on Binance, however, risks losing ground. The broad market takes on the dormant performances of Bitcoin, seeing less excitement of change on the chart since last reporting by CoinNess.com. Currently, there are 71 cryptos out of Top 100 by market cap climbing up. The global market cap marks $113.02 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $14.19 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $3,510.91 USDT on Binance, $3,595.20 on Bitfinex and $3,489.98 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $93.46 (+ 1.53%); BCH marks $107.56 (- 0.31%); ETC marks $3.92 (- 0.69%); LTC marks $25.25 (- 1.59%); XRP marks $0.308 (+ 0.46%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: REP (+ 99.37%), EOS (+ 13.73%), PAI (+ 11.07%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: MGO (- 6.78%), XTZ (- 5.84%), POWR (- 4.71%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Categories 1. Top 3 gainers among 52 categories: Credit Investigation (+ 28.52%), Sports (+ 6.58%), Market Prediction (+ 4.45%); 2. Top 3 losers among 52 categories: Crowdfunding (- 19.37%), Vote Election (- 12.82%), Advertising Concept (- 7.35%). Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: LTC (+ $193 mln), DASH (+ $178 mln), BTG (+ $141 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: EOS (- $51.69 mln), ETH (- $45.38 mln), GNT (- $13.00 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (- $3.18 mln), Bitfinex (- $8.57 mln) and Coinbase Pro (- $5.26 mln).

According to CoinGeek, Israeli news outlet Globes reported on Monday, Dec 10th, that Bitmain's development center in Ra'anana "will close this week," leaving all its 23 staff members without a job. Gadi Glikberg, who served as Bitmain's vice president for international sales and marketing, has also been fired, according to the report.

OKEx has temporarily suspended the deposit and withdrawal of BTM at 09:00 (UTC) on Dec 10th because of the upgrade.

In a growingly enthusiastic environment for the daily application of blockchain tech, the authorities tend to remain a calm mind, especially in a country like China where the policymakers worship "prudence". The PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, features a story today, on Dec 10th, and combs through the three major pain points for blockchain technology to be applied to key sectors, such as the national defense. First and foremost, the storage system of data running on the blockchain causes massive consumption of resources. The blockchain network operates in an ineffective way, since a slight change requires the entire chain to update. Lastly, the consensus algorithm leaves gateways to security breach, which is a dead spot for national security. The article points out the blockchains built for the national defense will be insignificant to the most popular cryptocurrencies, in terms of the scale, and this constitutes vulnerabilities by potential 51% attacks on the military infrastructure. All in all, the author concludes that as a cutting-edge new tech, its pros and cons must be put under thorough consideration to better serve the key fields of China.

Crypto exchange BKEX has enabled deposits of TurkeyChain (TKC) at 07:00 (UTC) on Dec 10, and will start the trading of TKC/USDT at 03:00 on Dec 11.

Barclaycard, a credit card and payment services provider and a division of Barclays, has announced its plans to explore the benefits of "self-sovereign identity" (SSI). Self-sovereign identity is the concept to enable people, organizations, and things to securely and privately store and control their own identity data, allowing them to share verifiable proof of who they are. It could replace usernames and passwords, and even form-filling. Barclaycard Payment Solutions (BPS) Innovation team is joining blockchain startup Evernym in the latter's 12-month Accelerator program.

Truck and transport insurer National Transport Insurance (NTI) has announced it is participating in a blockchain trial which it says aims to boost food safety, improve animal welfare, and monitor export security for Australian beef. BeefLedger, an Australian integrated provenance, blockchain security and payments platform, will deploy a pilot initiative this month that tracks the paddock-to-plate journey of premium Australian beef abroad.

Anatoly Aksakov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, said that the Russian parliament plans to adopt bills on digital assets by the end of the year. However, he did not specify which particular projects are being discussed. At press time, the State Duma is considering from three to nine bills regulating the blockchain industry in one way or another.

Citing statistics from alternative.me, Fear & Greed Index currently reads 19, five units higher than the previous day, which speaks possibilities of a backwards step taken by the bears. As per the index, a value of 0 means "Extreme Fear" while a value of 100 represents "Extreme Greed."

CoinDesk has just published Q3 2018 State of Blockchain report that summarizes key trends, data and events in Q3 2018. The cryptocurrency market has diminished throughout the year, with some brief spurts of growth in February at 14%, April at 62% and July at 8%. The past three months saw the market shrink from $262 billion in July to $230 billion in August and settling at $215 billion in September. The cryptocurrency market hasn't had a positive quarter since the Q4 2017 rally where it hit $609 billion. Q3 2018 saw the market decrease by 12% resulting in a market cap of $215 billion capital. BTC July saw an impressive 22% increase in market capital growth. Although, August was down 9% and September similarly down 6%. While tepid, Bitcoin had its first positve quater, after two consecutive negative ones. Bitcoin grew by 4% in Q3, while Q1 and Q2 of this year has dropped by 50% and 8% respectively. BTC's transaction volume diminished from a high of $517 billion to a low of $117 billion YTD. ETH in general trend has been negative for Ethereum market capital, although April saw a 70% increase. During Q3, its market cap couldn't break out of negative territory. It almost came up for air with a 4% decline in July, but suck to -34% and -18% for the following months. Click "Read More" for full report.

Announced on December 7, the Marui group announced the business alliance with Minna Power Co., which utilize the supply of renewable energy using blockchain. The company aims to expand the store that introduces renewable energy to achieve the goal of "RE 100" "RE 100" is an international initiative announcing the goal of raising 100% of electricity used in business activities from renewable energy. (by year 2050)

Shinhan Bank has announced a project on December 10 to apply the blockchain technology to improve the efficiency and safety of entire banking business.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC dropped by 1.17% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3497.79 on Binance.

Stasis, a Malta-based issuer of stablecoins, has hired accounting firm BDO Malta to conduct quarterly and annual audits of its financials, including the euro reserves backing the startup's EURS token. The engagement aims to dispel any doubts that EURS stablecoins are backed one-to-one by Euros.

As of 03:54 (UTC) on December 9, BTC swings near the $3,600 level, with its global average price at $3,608.97. The broad market is in an uptrend, with only 17 cryptos out of Top 100 by market cap dipping. The global market cap marks $114.2 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $13.97 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $3,607.93 USDT on Binance, $3,637.82 on Bitfinex and $3,537.1 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $94.03 (+1.42%); BCH marks $108.37 (+3.94%); ETC marks $3.98 (+1.79%); LTC marks $25.56 (+1.56%); XRP marks $0.312 (+1.35%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: DEX (+52.15%), XIN (+15.07%), ELF (+ 13.88%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: FCT (-5.22%), ETP (-3.44%), PPT (-2.39%). Top 3 Gainers in Categories 1. Top 3 gainers among 52 categories: Side Chain(+ 10.74%), Super Computing (+9.54%), Notarization (+ 7.54%); Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: BTG (+$208.81 mln), DASH (+$202.71 mln), XMR (+$32.1 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: ETH (-$35.38 mln), EOS (-$14.52 mln), AE (-$1.55 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+$519.47 mln), Bitfinex (+$204.13 mln) and Coinbase Pro (+$83.8 mln).

Facebook is advertising five blockchain positions on the careers page of its website, sparking speculation it is close to launching some kind of cryptocurrency product. The jobs include the following: Data scientist Data engineer Software engineer (x2) Product Marketing Lead It's the marketing job that has raised the most eyebrows, with marketing professionals usually brought on board when a product is about to launch. In the job description, Facebook says "we are seeking an experienced leader to build and manage a new product marketing team focused in exploring the opportunity the blockchain will bring."

As the markets tumble in the cryptocurrency industry, Binance cryptocurrency exchange is thriving as reported by BD Center. The report by the digital marketing and consultancy firm showed that Binance has over 51 million unique visitors on its site monthly in 2018 as its growth rate continues to soar higher.

"We may need to take legal action against these people making false claims. This lie of 0-conf attacks, well this comes under market manipulation in the U.K., "claimed Craig S. Wright on Twitter.

According to Sankei News, Japan Financial Service Agency plan to amend Capital Settlement Bill and Financial Instrument Transactions Bill in 2019. In the amendment, crypto exchanges are obligated to safeguard and register customer's funds.

Citing data from DappRadar, there are 1270 ETH Dapps; 197 EOS Dapps,19 Tron Dapps in the market. The top 3 Dapps with the highest trading volume are Etheroll, (Gaming, 5,930.17 ETH, 32 users); IDEX （Exchange, 2518 ETH, 701 users); and Ethfinex Trustless (Exchange, 2,294.57 ETH, 9 users).

Indian government panel appointed to recommend cryptocurrency measures has reportedly submitted its report to the country's finance minister, suggesting a new legal framework for cryptocurrencies. The actual content of the report has yet to be announced publicly. Industry participants weigh in on speculation about the report's content.

Citing data from Ether scan, as of 00:14 (UTC), $1.02 million worth of 1,000,000 TUSD were transferred from Binance hot wallet, address starting with 0x3f5ce5 to wallet address starting with 0x008024.

NEM (XEM), a cryptocurrency project building a network designed for better-performing smart assets, has partnered with GUBI, China's largest online artwork trading market and artwork database, to develop a review and identity system. According to the announcement, GUBI is positioned as a professional search engine for the Chinese art industry. Included in this search engine are 33 million pieces of antique data, more than 6,600 professional antique e-books, 800 experts and 2,000 academics. CoiNess.com Market Index: XEM, $0.074, +4.46%.

On Twitter, Justin Sun announced that the company wishes to create a fund to "rescue" dApp developers working on both Ethereum and EOS platforms on the condition that they move their dApps to the Tron network.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Busan city government leads a selection of projects to build a blockchain-based virtual power plant.

The current number of blockchain wallet users has surpassed 30 million, up from 28 million since September, despite the market downturn. The number of blockchain wallet users worldwide has been growing steadily ever since Bitcoin's inception in 2009 with no signs of fatigue.

1. Japanese crypto exchange BIBOX, under the banner of LINE, will terminate 15 ETH trading pairs on December 10. 2. (Zcoin) to hard fork at 12:00 (UTC) on December 10. 3. Circle Invest plans to release incentives to the winners' accounts at a time around December 10 following its New Users Incentive Plan.

With the recent release of development tools and announcement of the Tron Accelerator competition, Tron is moving forward at a rapid pace. Tron Foundation executive Tom Mao, who handles technical writing and the media division, said Tron has solved the scalability issues that were present in Bitcoin and Ethereum. These legacy coins have a proof of work system which gives rise to energy inefficiency and very centralized mining cartels. Tom also talked in detail about recent developments on the technical side, saying there are many exciting development tools released by Tron. He mentioned four major tools for developers: Tronbox – Framework for integrating with Tron network and creating DApps; Tronstudio – IDE for testing, compiling and deploying smart contracts; Trongrid – Load balanced API service to access Tron blockchain; Tronweb – Extensive library of API calls like HTTP, JavaScript as well as PHP and Python.

Bear season is taking its toll, and crypto companies are already shutting up shop. But Dash Core Group won't be one of them, according to CEO Ryan Taylor. In a recent blog post, Taylor addressed the "severe breakdown of market confidence," while reassuring investors that development for the sixteenth-largest cryptocurrency will not be affected. Click 'Read More' for details.

Filipe Larrain, Chile's Minister of Finance, recently stated that several governmental entities are "making progress" on creating crypto regulation. He added that the finance ministry is collaborating with the country's central bank and Financial Stability Board to develop a balanced framework in the industry. The establishment of a regulatory framework is part of a governmental project to ensure that there are legal definitions so that the regulations mean something. He also stated, "We are aware that it is important to move in this direction. But all countries in the world are facing similar problems, and there is no magic want to solve them. We are exploring the best solutions to see how regulate this brand new phenomenon."

As observed by CoinNess.com, statistics by CoinTrendz.com show BTC, ETH and XRP were the Top 3 most mentioned cryptocurrencies on Twitter in the last hour. The full list is as follows: BTC (191 mentions), ETH (76), XRP (40), LTC (39), TRX (31), NEO (29), EOS (27), BCH (26), ADA (24), and XMR (20).

As of 18:00 (UTC) on December 9, BTC swings near the $3,600 level, with its global average price at $3,642.17. The broad market is in line with BTC's uptrend, with only 5 cryptos out of Top 100 by market cap dipping. The global market cap marks $115.85 billion, while the 24-hour trading volume is $14.71 billion. Major Coins 1. BTC quotes show $3,628.27 USDT on Binance, $3,684.50 on Bitfinex and $3,565.51 on Coinbase Pro; 2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $97.20 (+ 7.93%); BCH marks $111.53 (+ 8.31%); ETC marks $4.13 (+ 8.92%); LTC marks $26.64 (+ 7.69%); XRP marks $0.318 (+ 4.17%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies 1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: DEX (+ 44.53%), ELF (+ 15.81%), EOS (+ 15.04%); 2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: ETP (- 5.15%), FCT (- 3.78%), BSV (- 2.90%). Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Categories 1. Top 3 gainers among 52 categories: Internet of Things (+ 8.64%), Cross Chain Technology (+ 8.44%), Super Computing Power (+ 8%); 2. Top 3 losers among 52 categories: Advertising Concept (- 6.14%), Community Concept (- 3.25%), Virtual Reality (- 2.84%). Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges 1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: DASH (+ $191.70 mln), LTC (+ $190.19 mln), BTG (+ $116.64 mln); 2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: EOS (- $33.63 mln), ETH (- $22.41 mln), ZB (- $3.36 mln); 3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (+ $3.80 mln), Bitfinex (- $4.68 mln) and Coinbase Pro (- $5.64 mln).

"We need a balanced, fair and diverse system where the dollar plays an important role, but that is not used as a mechanism of coercion against the people because it is illegal," Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro said after a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Russia currently buys its oil in yuan rather than dollars, according to Maduro, who suggested to Putin that he could buy oil in Petro, a crypto like token running on the hybrid private-public NEM blockchain.

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC surged by 1.02% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3616.53 on Binance.

All across government, from Births, Deaths and Marriages to Vicroads, from the Department of Immigration to the Australian Tax Office, time is wasted trying to find information and reconcile incomplete data sets. These inefficient processes are expensive both for the state, and for the people and businesses that rely on such information being accurate and readily available. To tackle the problem of widely dispersed, incomplete databases, the Australian government is rolling out Govpass. Over the next year, as many as eight high-volume government services will pilot the digital identity system. It will involve more than 500,000 Australians. Once fully rolled out, it will be safer and easier than ever before for Australians to prove who they are when dealing with the government.

Cointext has announced that its Bitcoin Cash wallet service has just launched in the Ukraine and Italy. Cointext is now connected to 35 countries worldwide and the wallet works on any smartphone as well as basic feature phones.

Kerem Albayrak, a resident of Istanbul, Turkey, claims he lost access to $170,000 in digital currency as he did not properly back up his recovery phrase to his cryptocurrency wallet. In a Reddit post, Albayrak explained in detail what happened. Click 'Read More' for details.

HTC, a Taiwan-based company which recently released a new blockchain-compatible mobile phone, has announced Brave as the device's default internet browser.

Craig Wright, the controversial impersonator of Satoshi, tweeted about a plan to start showing people how Bitcoin and any blockchain scales in the coming January. He furthered that the scale plan requires SPV and no servers. In addition, he disclosed that this will be patented and licensed to Bitcoin SV exclusively.

Lex Sokolin, the global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research, said that the entrance of new investors and capital could end up counterbalancing the sector in the months to come, and for commercial companies with strong profit margins like exchanges, that certainly could be the case. "I'd be comfortable saying that the pricing pressure on digital assets in 2018 is likely to lead to 25-50-percent shutdowns and layoffs for current projects based on historical comparisons. However, the pace of new entrants and capital could counterbalance this contraction and still grow the sector overall."

Joseph Young just tweeted, "It's almost impossible to buy or sell crypto in India and it's a shame. India is the world's biggest remittance market and cross-border transactions can be very difficult for expats w/out banking accounts in some regions." In the end, he concluded, "Overregulation is killing a high potent market for crypto."

Citing data from Binance, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) is now up the psychologically important $3,500 level, and now marks $3,528.92 USDT. For more alerts on real-time market changes, add your portfolio at "Watch List" to enable the Intelligent Market Monitor, seizing more investment opportunities.

Chris ZHU, co-founder of a world's leading Bitcoin mining pool Poolin, posted on his Moments, an equivalent to Facebook, saying "A bold guess: The bottom of the bear market is here."

Coinness Market Index shows that BTC surged by 1.13% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks $3482.00 on Binance. For more alerts on real-time market changes, add your portfolio at "Watch List" to enable the Intelligent Market Monitor, seizing more investment opportunities.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has announced its successful collaboration with IBM, piloting a Blockchain-based automated system to integrate oil and gas production across the full value chain. The system provides a secure platform for the tracking, validating and execution of transactions at every stage, from production well to the end customer.

Madison Holdings Group Limited (08057-HK) announced that its fully-owned subsidiary, Madison Lab Limited, has bought in 67.2% shares of BITOCEAN Co. Ltd, with $15 million. BITOCEAN is a Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange, one of the 16 registered with the Japanese Financial Agency.

Speaking to the complementary efforts of developers working on two separate upgrades to the Ethereum blockchain - one dubbed Ethereum 2.0 and the other dubbed Ethereum 1x - Raul Jordan insists upgrades to be included in Ethereum 1x on a shorter time horizon would have benefits to ongoing research for Ethereum 2.0. Jordan is the co-lead for one of eight different developer teams currently building software clients for Ethereum 2.0, namely ChainSafe Systems, PegaSys, Harmony, Parity Technologies, Prysmatic Labs, Sigma Prime, Status, and Trinity.

According to the official announcement, F2Pool, the world's leading and one of the oldest-surviving mining pool in China, now supports Aeternity (AE). CoinNess.com Market Index: AE, $0.393, +4.36%.

[Policy] 1. Israel's tax collection authority is taking aim at cryptocurrency traders and investors who have unreported earnings from their crypto investments, which is subject to a capital gains tax of 25% - 30%. [Cryptocurrency] 1. Blockstream announced on Dec 6th, 2018 the launch of Esplora, which is the source code behind Blockstream.info; 2. A proposed hard fork of the Stellar network called Stellar Activity is a scam, according to the official release; 3. The beta firmware of the Trezor Wallet now offers native support for Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and ERC20 tokens; 4. BetDice refreshes the record of the largest EOS Dapp transaction volume with 28.82 million EOS traded within 24 hours; 5. Tether has overtaken Stellar to become the 4th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. [Exchange] 1. Bithumb has beta launched a public voting system for screening new coins to be listed on its exchange. [Others] 1. The Ontario Securities Commission is seeking to have USI-Tech permanently banned from its jurisdiction; 2. Ripple's international partner, Banco Santander, recently won an award titled Financial Innovation Award at the FIAwards 2018; 3. An Internet Court in Hangzhou, Eastern China, has turned to blockchain to fight piracy at the expense of online writers; 4. Gabor Gurbacs, a director and digital asset strategist at VanEck, called out SEC double standard after Coinbase listed "Shitcoins"; 5. South Korean blockchain startup Presto has filed a constitutional complaint alleging that the government's ban on all forms of ICOs in September last year is unconstitutional; 6. The Trezor Wallet has announced that the device's beta firmware now offers native support for Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and ERC20 tokens.