According to Cointelegraph, in a Feb 19 announcement, the BIS revealed that Andrew McCormack, who currently serves as chief information officer at payment clearing and settlement firm Payments Canada, will now be the head of the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Singapore. At the same time, Morten Bech, Head of Secretariat for the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) at BIS, will manage the Hub Centre in Switzerland.

According to Reuters, Global financial regulators risk falling behind on rapid innovation in the digital payments industry and need to work more quickly to devise rules for crypto-currencies or "stablecoins," the chair of a global finance watchdog said on on Feb 19.

According to Finance Magnates, Israeli banks cannot put a blanket ban on offering banking services to crypto-related customers, Attorney General Dr. Abihai Mandelblit stated in a Tel Aviv District Court.
Reported by the Globes on Feb 19, Mandelblit said that banks need to examine each case individually before refusing services to any crypto-related customers on the grounds of money laundering risks.

According to the chain news, FAN Xiaojun, head of sales of Bitmain's ant mining Asia-Pacific region, said on Feb 19 that the mining machines of Bitmain's to be produced in March have been sold out and prepaid. The April mining machines are opening now for sale.

According to Cryptoiq, the IOTA Trinity wallet was compromised, and the IOTA Foundation shut down the entire network via the coordinator until the problem could be resolved. Now the IOTA Foundation has released a 3 step plan to fix the situation, although it involves rewinding the blockchain, which is a major violation of immutability.

According to the official announcement of OKEx, OKEx has officially launched the currency leveraged token price system at 12:00 UTC on February 19, 2020. After the price marketing system has been launched, the marking price is used instead of the latest transaction price to calculate the user's margin rate. This will effectively prevent the user's flattering cost due to abnormal price fluctuations.

According to Huobi Official website, due to ADA mainnet upgrade, the Huobi global will suspend ADA deposit and withdrawal at 13:00 UTC on Feb 20, 2020.

As of 13:45 UTC on Feb 19, the largest crypto, Bitcoin is trading at the $10,100 level. Now the coin is changing hands at 10,126.99 USDT on Boboo.com with a 4.69% increase in the past 24 hours.
Out of the 63 accredited crypto analysts with CoinNess.com, 31 think that for the next 24 hours (12:00 UTC, Feb 19 to 12:00 UTC, Feb 20), the price of BTC will rise, 22 think it will drop, and 10 think it will continue to trade sideways.
CoinNess.com selects opinions from three popular crypto analysts for your market analysis:
Bullish
@Laoyushuoibi: The Bitcoin price has breached its second resistent level. The market is experiencing a FOMO mentality (fear of mising out). The market supporting line lies on $10,000. The resistance lies on $10,300.
@Biquanhua: The market momentum is covering above the 10-day MA, the market might oscillate between the $10,050 and $10,500. The estimate pressure level is $10,500. Supporting level: $9,800
Bearish:
@Guiguzi: After a wave of rebound, the four-hour macd level has reached the zero axis. I expect the price of the Bitcoin to drop by tomorrow.

Binance CEO just tweeted to disclosed the fixing progress. He said: "Still progressing. Roughly 5/8 of the way there. But estimates are not 1:1 accurate to time. Balance's ETC are all intact. The only affected part is the market data. It just takes time, waiting sucks."

Binance CEO ZHAO Changpeng claimed via his Twitter handle at 11:21 UTC on Feb 19 that Binance paused trading due to unscheduled system maintenance. Later, he explained the situation: "One of the market data pushers had issues, matching engine was fine, no data loss or corruption (other than market data). Working on it. Should be fixed soon." "Futures, using a separate matching engine, is still working fine. But no fund transfers between the products. P2P and most other trading services are paused," he added.

Tech Mahindra, the IT subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, is launching a blockchain accelerator together with the government of the southern state of Telangana. 
The parties hope the accelerator will become a “torch-bearer” for future accelerators nationwide. The new “T-Block Accelerator” is aimed at fostering blockchain startups that have identified a strong real-world use case for the technology, and to boost industry growth overall. Innovation management firm IBC Media will run the accelerator program, which developed following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was signed between the government of Telangana and Tech Mahindra back in 2018. 

Observing the current market, CoinNess analysts hold that BTC is still the most valuable coin to pay attention to. It is overwhelming no matter in terms of the price increase in short-time trading or impact on the overall market. During the rebound, BTC performed better than the majority of altcoins and its price touched the high position in the short-term trading. So, it shows that funds are running around the BTC, not altcoins. After BTC gained strong momentum in short-time trading, its price did not exceed the former high position of $10,340, which is the reason for the current weak performance. BTC accounted for a huge proportion of market value. Once its price goes up, funds will flow in, which will form pressure for altcoins. We can confirm that most altcoins are in the price adjustment period. With a growing trading volume, coin prices probably will not go downwards. And some coins may create new all-time highs. For instance, OKB and ETH perform better than other coins. Besides, XTZ rose a lot in the short-time trading and will hit a new high in the future. For tactics, traders should be cautious when buying coins which have already had large increases in short-time trading. Do remember not to buy when prices are up and sell when prices go down.

CoinNess Market Index shows that BTC drops by 1.01% within 5 minutes. BTC currently marks 10,129.96 USDT on Boboo.com.
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According to Whale Alert, at 11:47 UTC on Feb 19, Tether newly issued $60.23 million worth of USDT. The transaction hash is 0x3fdadeb1b7f18e9601cdfac367eeb89a4ca1fc8a259db07b117faf1d3f0bc44c.

Coinbase, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange, has been made a Visa principal member. The firm said the news marks it as the “first pure-play crypto company” to be approved by the credit card giant.
Coinbase has been working with Visa since 2019 when it launched its Coinbase Card in the UK. The debit card allows users to spend cryptocurrency as cash anywhere Visa is accepted. The card has since been made available in 29 markets with 10 cryptocurrencies supported. Principal members of Visa are financial institutions authorized to issue some types of payment cards. In theory, Coinbase could issue cards to other crypto companies, though it’s not clear if it plans to use that power immediately.

BlockStale, the company behind the Bitcoin Teller Machine (BTM), built the first Bitcoin ATM for Nigeria and said the increasing adoption and potential of the cryptocurrency is one of the reasons it built and installed the machine in Ajah area of Lagos State. Unlike normal ATMs, however, the new BTM does not accept cards whether they are debit, credit, master, or visa cards. This is largely due to a lack of clear regulations and frameworks on cryptocurrencies in Nigeria.

As of 11:00 (UTC) on Feb 19, the global price index of Bitcoin (BTC) has gone above the $10,100 level. At present, the coin marks $10,108.73 with an increase of 3.97% in the past 24 hours.
The CoinNess.com Bullish vs. Bearish Indicator shows our four-hour technical bias on BTC is "Strong Buy" with one indicator sending out a selling signal, three showing neutral signals, and 14 indicating buying signals.
The broad market turns bullish, with 86 out of Top 100 cryptos by market cap rising.
The global market cap reads $295.39 billion, and the 24-hour trading volume is $172.37 billion.
Major Coins
1. BTC quotes show 10,123.79 USDT on Binance, $10,141.00 on Bitfinex, $10,146.50 on Coinbase Pro and 10,125.50 USDT on Boboo.com;
2. CoinNess.com Market Index presents quotes for major cryptocurrencies besides BTC as following: ETH marks $279.46 (+5.12%); XRP marks $0.2942 (+2.65%); BCH marks $415.43 (+3.32%); LTC marks $77.09 (+5.83%); EOS marks $4.54 (+2.75%); ETC marks $9.63 (+2.11%).
Top 3 Gainers and Losers in Cryptocurrencies
1. Top 3 gainers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: ICX (+23.87%), SC (+22.72%), and MKR (+19.87%);
2. Top 3 losers among Top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap: MONA (-19.75%), FUN (-6.73%), and ENG (-1.59%).
Cap Flows of Coins/Exchanges
1. Top 3 capital inflows within the last 24 hours: ETH (+147.34 mln), XRP (+$43.09 mln), and LTC (+$38.76 mln);
2. Top 3 capital outflows within the last 24 hours: TUSD (-$33.80 mln), BSV (-$26.15 mln), and MONA (-$6.69 mln);
3. Net inflows/outflows of exchanges: Binance (-$19.47 mln), Bitfinex (+$19.02 mln), and Coinbase Pro (+$27.52 mln).

Peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin trading platform Paxful has reported $1.6 billion worth of global trading volume for 2019, driven by growth in Africa. Paxful’s African volumes increased by over 57% in 2019, while overall it has seen a “steady” growth of over 25% year-on-year since its inception in 2015. The platform currently boasts of servicing over 3 million wallets, 45% of which are from Africa.

BitMax.io (BTMX.com) has announced the listing of FLEX, the native token of CoinFLEX. CoinFLEX is the world’s first exchange to offer a physical delivery for Bitcoin futures contracts. The listing of FLEX reflects the joint vision of both trading platforms to support market growth and structure maturity within the evolving digital asset ecosystem.

Monitored by CoinNess, from 00:00 to 10:00 (UTC) on Feb 19, ETH registered a net outflow of $25.33 million in the past 10 hours.
1. The Top 3 net cap inflows in the crypto market are: OKB (+$8.47 mln), XTZ (+$3.36 mln), QTUM (+$2.89 mln);
2. The Top 3 net cap outflows in the crypto market are: ETH (-$25.33 mln), LTC (-$13.49 mln), EOS (-$10.50 mln).
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An alleged drug dealer lost 52 million euro (over $56 million) in Bitcoin (BTC) after the Irish High Court ruled that they were criminal proceeds and should be confiscated. Local news outlet Independent.ie reported on Feb 19 that the court accepted that Clifton Collins was involved in drug trafficking. Collins did not contest the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) application for the seizure of his assets.

As of 09:46 (UTC) on Feb 19, Coinhills statistics show that the US Dollar is the most traded national currency for Bitcoin, dominating 71.73% of the global fiat-to-BTC market, followed by the Korean Won (17.43%), the Japanese Yen (4.53%), the Euro (3.57%), and the Turkish Lira (1.07%).

According to Whale Alert, at 09:05 UTC on Feb 19, 1,006 BTC (about $10.17 million) were transferred from the address starting with 3Q8Stm to OKEx. The transaction hash is 24f40d5ab100ef82cdf2f3c97aca85414e79fc32d68cf96734c6f834f5bd674a.

In a recent interview, Thomas Lee, Co-Founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, reveals why he is so bullish on Bitcoin. According to him, “Bitcoin is a network value asset, so the more people who hold it and find it useful the greater its price gain. It’s really a log function. Today, about 500,000 people use Bitcoin. So, for it to quadruple, you just need to double the number of users.”

Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, has just fired off a tweet about the number one cryptocurrency being “a pyramid scheme.” He said, “The fake news spread by Bitcoin pumpers is amazing. I acknowledged the past rise in the price of Bitcoin merely to point out that those gains did not prove my earlier comments about Bitcoin’s flaws as money invalid. A pyramid scheme has no place in an investment portfolio.”

On February 18, 2020, Judge Edgardo Ramos granted a request to reschedule the deadlines concerning the sentencing of Mark Scott, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud in November. The sentencing of Scott is now postponed until May 26, 2020.

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According to this week’s ‘State of the Network’ report from CoinMetrics, 33% of Bitcoin’s supply was held by larger addresses, those with at least one-thousandth of the total supply, in February 2011. This percentage has dropped to just 11% this year, though the percentage held by smaller addresses has been increasing steadily over the last nine years. This is likely a positive sign and could indicate that BTC is actually being used by more individuals over time.

According to Tokenview, at 07:42 UTC on Feb 19, 325,000 ETC (about $3.08 million) were transferred on the Ethereum Classic blockchain. The transaction hash is 0xdbb9c3494ef60e42204a62c26d4517a6e9b972a47625683e4c42ff95259943f2.