Today's blockchain and cryptocurrency news Bitcoin is down 2% at $9,019 XRP is down 3.5% at 28 cents and Ethereum is down 1% at $183 Top gainers in the last 24 hours: Numeraire, up 19% and Dentacoin, up 15% Todays headlines: Tether released a response to an academic paper that claimed a single whale manipulated bitcoin’s boom in 2017. The block is noting a trend down in cumulative monthly traffic to retail exchanges since june. Coinbase has expanded their staking services to all us customers, starting with the Tezos token. Russian authorities are looking for the legal backing to confiscate virtual assets from "criminals". Five people in Malaysia have been charged with stealing mining equipment.