Point of View: The Federal Reserve Has Over-Eased, with a 65% Chance of Stagflation in the United States

Polygon has disclosed multiple previously unreported security vulnerabilities fixed via two recent hard forks—Austin and Kyoto—that could impact its Proof-of-Stake network. The flaws involve Polygon’s Bor and Heimdall clients, including denial-of-service (DoS) risks, validator resource exhaustion, and defects affecting checkpoint and milestone processing. Polygon said the fixes were completed in private testing before being deployed to the mainnet and publicly revealed. The most severe issue relates to Heimdall: a carefully crafted transaction could force validators to perform excessive processing, disrupting the network. The Austin hard fork also fixed two DoS risks in Bor, which could slow block processing or cause node crashes. Polygon noted that these vulnerabilities were not exploited on the mainnet, and the repairs were completed proactively before details of the flaws were made public.

According to Bitget market data, South Korean and Japanese stock indexes opened sharply lower amid the US-Iran conflict. The Nikkei 225 index opened 1.1% lower, while South Korea’s KOSPI fell 2.6% at the open. Among heavyweight stocks, SK Hynix dropped over 4% and Samsung Electronics declined 3.31%.

Besent anticipates that the U.S. will roll out new secondary sanctions every week, designed to ramp up pressure on Iran, with the measures initially targeting banks.

Affected by reports of the U.S. military’s night raid on the Strait of Hormuz, the crypto market plunged in early trading. Data from Coinglass shows that $180 million in liquidations occurred across the crypto network over the past hour, with $173 million coming from long positions.

US Central Command confirmed that the U.S. military attacked two Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday (early morning, August 31 Beijing time). This marks the first time the U.S. has publicly admitted to launching an attack on Iran since late July. Shortly after, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on social media in the early hours of August 31 that Iran had fired missiles at U.S. military bases. In a statement, the IRGC said the attack on Larak Island killed and injured multiple people including civilians, adding that "the enemy’s aggression against Larak Island will definitely be retaliated against, and the aggressor will definitely be punished." Affected by the news, Bitget data shows WTI crude oil opened with a nearly 2% gap-up on Monday, while Brent crude oil returned to the $90 per barrel threshold, rising 2.3% intraday. Spot gold opened with a gap-down. According to HTX data, the entire crypto market fell: Bitcoin dropped to $77,000 and is currently trading at $77,399.02, down 1.7% in the past hour.

According to Fox News, Iran is carrying out attacks on U.S. troops stationed in Jordan. A U.S. source familiar with the situation stated that the Iranian strikes have not had a major impact so far, with almost all incoming missiles intercepted.