Crypto Industry News:
With the participation of the authorities of seven countries and Europol, Darkmarket, one of the largest exchanges in the darknet, was closed. The action was taken after the alleged operator was arrested in Germany. Europol announced on Tuesday that the Darknet Marketplace Darkmarket has been removed:
"Darkmarket, the world's largest illicit darknet market, was shut down through a joint international operation involving Germany, Australia, Denmark, Moldova, Ukraine, the UK (National Crime Agency) and the US (DEA, FBI and IRS)."
According to Europol, Darkmarket had nearly 500,000 users and over 2,400 retailers. This generated over 320,000 transactions, with "over 4,650 BTC and 12,800 Monero".
"At the current rate, this corresponds to a total of more than 140 million euros [$ 171 million]. The vendors on the stock exchange traded mainly in drugs of all kinds and sold counterfeit money, stolen or falsified credit card details, anonymous SIM cards and malware," Europol wrote.
The alleged operator of Darkmarket was arrested over the weekend by the Central Investigation Department in the German city of Oldenburg, near the German-Danish border. The Cybercrime Department of the Public Prosecutor's Office in Koblenz located and closed the stock exchange. They shut down the exchange's servers and took over "the criminal infrastructure - over 20 servers in Moldova and Ukraine supported by the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA)". Europol added:
"The stored data will provide investigators with new clues to further investigate moderators, sellers and buyers."
Europol recently closed another large darknet market. In cooperation with the Finnish customs (Tulli), the authorities closed the Darknet Sipulimarket in December and seized its Bitcoins.
Technical Market Outlook:
The ETH/USD pair keeps trading just below the level of $1,135, which is a 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the last wave down as the corrective bounce higher has been capped. In a case of a breakout, the next target for bulls is seen at the level of $1,185, where the 61% Fibonacci retracement is located. Nevertheless, to resume the up trend, the bulls have to break through the technical resistance located at the level of $1,200. The momentum remains neutral to positive. The larger time frame trend remains up.
Weekly Pivot Points:
WR3 - $1,598
WR2 - $1,630
WR1 - $1,500
Weekly Pivot - 1,188
WS1 - $1,038
WS2 - $720
WS3 - $563
Trading Recommendations:
The up trend on the Ethereum continues and the next long term target for ETH/USD is seen at the level of $1,420, so any correction or local pull-back should be used to open the buy orders. Please notice, the up trend starting to go vertical, so the volatility will be higher than average. The bullish scenario is valid as long as the level of $830 is broken.
