The Block
Quick Take Cardi B Joins $WAP on Solana, Bridging Crypto, Culture, and Community
Early sales of World Liberty Financial’s token have generated under $13 million — far below its $300 million goal.Despite Donald Trump’s crypto pivot this year, the protocol has garnered skepticism from the outset from industry advocates.
Quick Take Eric Council Jr., 25, was charged with “conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.” The SEC’s X account was compromised earlier this year after a post was put out that falsely said spot bitcoin ETFs had been approved.
Quick Take Bitcoin miners face a narrowing window of opportunity to secure high-performance computing (HPC)/AI data center deals amid a U.S. infrastructure planning backlog, according to JPMorgan analysts. The JPMorgan analysts highlighted that this opportunity arises as the demand for AI-driven computing continues to surge.
Quick Take zkPass has raised $12.5 million in a Series A funding round. The round was structured as SAFT and brought zkPass’ token valuation to $100 million, co-founder and CTO Bing Jiang told The Block.
Quick Take The betting volume for whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win the 2024 presidential election crossed $2 billion on Polymarket. The same prediction market had amassed $1 billion in betting volume on Sept. 24; it gained its second billion in just 24 days.
Quick Take MARA CEO Fred Thiel told analysts at Bernstein that the current AI environment resembles the early-2000s internet boom, and companies may be overbuilding infrastructure for it without sufficient demand. Strategies have diverged this year between AI diversifiers and pure-play bitcoin miners like MARA. However, Thiel acknowledged successful operators will increasingly incorporate AI components in the long term.
Quick Take The team behind the popular Telegram-based clicker game Hamster Kombat is teasing the tap-to-earn title’s second season while plugging its plans to grow its ecosystem in new territories. Hamster Kombat’s founders said that while there has been a huge selloff of HMSTR tokens, causing the price and market cap to slide significantly since last month’s airdrop, they are encouraged by “high trading volumes and overall market participation.”
Crypto exchange Kraken has launched its own version of wrapped bitcoin, kBTC — a fully backed, cross-network compatible ERC-20 token.Kraken’s launch follows the recent introduction of Coinbase’s wrapped bitcoin asset, cbBTC.
Quick Take Bitcoin exchange reserves have fallen to a multi-year low, according to CryptoQuant data. A CryptoQuant analyst noted that new bitcoin whales are fueling buying pressure, with accumulation driven not just by spot bitcoin ETFs but also by other major entities.
