The Block
Quick Take The US Congress released a final National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday night, which authorizes appropriations for defense-related activities. The package does not include any crypto or blockchain provisions, punting legislation to next year.
Quick Take Sotheby’s has begun its first-ever auction for Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFTs. The online auction features three items from the BitcoinShrooms collection — the first time the works have been made available to the public.
Quick Take Uphold is launching self-custody wallet Vault in beta which will initially support Ripple’s XRP token, with plans to expand to Bitcoin in the beginning of next year. If users lose their private keys, with Vault they “can initiate a key replacement that will enable them to recover access to their assets.”
Quick Take Miners prioritize revenue, making them unlikely to limit Bitcoin inscriptions like Ordinals, which could reduce their earnings, according to Bioniq CEO Bob Bodily. Even if limitations were imposed, alternative methods for data storage on Bitcoin would continue, Bodily said.
Quick Take Babylon has raised $18 million in a Series A round co-led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC. The bitcoin staking protocol is expected to launch “around the next Bitcoin halving.”
Quick Take Xion released its testnet focusing on “generalized abstraction” to simplify network use. It previously raised over $11 million from various investors, including Circle Ventures and Animoca Brands.
Quick Take Sindri, a zero-knowledge infrastructure platform, secured $5 million in a seed round led by CoinFund. The funding is meant to support Sindri in expanding its team, developer network and zero-knowledge-based developer stack.
Bitcoin’s price may rise above the $50,000 mark in early 2024, according to a CryptoQuant report.The report added that 90% of bitcoin’s circulating supply is now in profit, indicating possible short-term corrections.
Quick Take Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) has teamed up with Sygnum Bank and Coincover to launch an optional crypto recovery service. The service called Safe RecoveryHub offers a range of recovery options from self-custodial to custodial and social recovery.
Quick Take One Trading will launch its new platform in the next few weeks, after the business span out from Bitpanda earlier this year. The startup claims it has created the fastest digital asset trading venue in the market.
