| Summary: | We prove that Waldhausen K-theory, when extended to a very general class of quasicategories, can be described as a Goodwillie differential. In particular, K-theory spaces admit canonical (connective) deloopings, and the K-theory functor enjoys a simple universal property. Using this, we give new, higher categorical proofs of the Approximation, Additivity, and Fibration Theorems of Waldhausen in this context. As applications of this technology, we study the algebraic K-theory of associative rings in a wide range of homotopical contexts and of spectral Deligne–Mumford stacks.
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