Tom Lee provides Ethereum Three-Tier Price Target: $22,000 as Base Case, $25,000 as High Case

The BRICS Leaders' Summit was held in New Delhi, India. As the ongoing conflict involving Iran continues to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea, and international oil prices have topped $100, Iran emerged as one of the core topics at this year's summit. Member states including China, Russia and India have direct communication channels with Iran, a diplomatic advantage the U.S. currently lacks. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called on member states ahead of the summit to establish alternative financial instruments to reduce reliance on the Western-led financial system, and criticized the U.S.-dominated global order. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, advocated for advancing the establishment of a BRICS platform more independent from Western rules, with a focus on strengthening cooperation in payments, investment, technology and infrastructure. However, it will not be easy for BRICS to position itself as a mediator in the Middle East crisis. Iran is on opposing sides of a conflict with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), another BRICS member, which has previously suspended trade and financial exchanges with Iran; India, meanwhile, must balance its relations with the U.S., Gulf states, Russia and Iran. Divergences among member states previously led to the foreign ministers' meeting failing to issue a joint statement. What the market is currently more focused on is whether BRICS can reach a minimal consensus on energy security, cross-border payments and the Middle East situation. With ongoing disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, whether the summit can ultimately deliver a unified stance will also serve as an important window for observing global energy and geopolitical trends.

Liz Miller, founder and president of U.S. wealth management firm Summit Place Financial Advisors, said that while markets widely expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week, further policy tightening is "fundamentally unnecessary" given the overall economic stability. Miller noted, "I think most investors believe the Fed will raise rates next week, and I also think that’s highly probable. But it’s fundamentally unnecessary. I’d be interested to hear the discussions at the policy meeting, as some Fed officials firmly believe action is needed before overall inflation picks up to push it back to the 2% target. However, if we take a patient view of other parts of the economy, they are actually performing quite stably. I’m not sure a broad rate hike is truly necessary. We can continue to monitor whether rising oil prices will spill over and watch core inflation gradually fall."

On his personal channel, blockchain investigator ZachXBT stated that fintech firm Revolut allegedly failed to detect a forged government agency request, leading to the leakage of some users’ personal identifiable information (PII). According to his disclosure, Revolut received a customer information retrieval request that appeared to come from a legitimate government agency, sent via the agency’s official email domain. Since the email had valid domain authentication details, Revolut deemed the request authentic and responded. The potentially involved data includes users’ names, dates of birth, occupations, addresses, emails, phone numbers, as well as copies of passports or driver’s licenses, identity verification selfies, account statements, IBANs, withdrawal records, and full transaction histories—including Bitcoin transactions. In its notification to users, Revolut said no biometric facial telemetry data was leaked. ZachXBT noted that the incident’s scale may be limited, but it appears to target primarily high-net-worth users. Multiple Revolut users received alerts about the security incident yesterday. Revolut officials have previously reminded users to verify suspicious communications via in-app customer service and avoid providing personal or financial information.

US August inflation data heats up again. China International Capital Corporation (CICC) research report shows that US August CPI rose 0.4% month-on-month, core CPI rose 0.3% month-on-month, both indicators accelerated compared to the previous period; core CPI rose 2.4% year-on-year, slightly above market expectations. CICC believes that August inflation has reached the threshold for the Federal Reserve to resume rate hikes, and expects the Fed may raise interest rates by 25 basis points at its September 16 policy meeting, lifting the federal funds rate target range to 3.75% to 4%. In terms of structure, rising energy prices and resilient service prices remain key drivers of inflation, while some AI-related price pressures have also begun to emerge. CICC forecasts that the Fed may lower its unemployment rate forecast, raise its inflation forecast, and lift its 2027 and 2028 interest rate paths at this meeting, signaling a more hawkish policy stance. CICC also warns that a bigger risk is the Fed may raise rates further this year or next, meaning the market’s current pricing for a rate-cut cycle still has room for readjustment.

After US August CPI data came in slightly above expectations, markets largely confirmed the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates next week — a development that instead sparked a Friday rebound in US stocks. Investors view the clear rate hike path as helping reduce policy uncertainty and avoiding more aggressive rate hike expectations down the line. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% on Friday, the Dow Jones gained around 1%, and the Nasdaq climbed 1%, though all three major indexes ended the week lower overall. Meanwhile, the 10-year US Treasury yield closed at 4.974%, near the 5% threshold, a notable jump from 4.783% a week earlier. Markets now expect the Fed to raise rates by 25 basis points at next week’s meeting. RBC Capital Markets has even shifted its forecast for rate cuts this year to three rate hikes, noting that high interest rates could further weigh on corporate earnings and stock valuations. The energy market also remained under pressure: Brent crude closed at $104.61 per barrel on Friday, up more than 8% for the week. Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities, shipping risks in the Strait of Hormuz, and Saudi Arabia’s shutdown of east-west oil pipelines have all amplified supply concerns. While market sentiment improved somewhat on Friday, the simultaneous presence of high oil prices and elevated interest rates means US stocks could remain highly volatile going forward. Wall Street’s core question has now shifted from “whether the Fed will raise rates” to “how long high interest rates will persist, and whether they can curb inflation without harming the economy and corporate earnings.”

Beating AI Express: OpenAI has fixed a series of quality issues following the launch of Astra. The most notable problem stemmed from legacy Skills: some Skills written for previous models were triggering incorrectly on Astra, even preventing the model from auditing its own work. Another issue related to context management experiments, which caused Astra to terminate responses early or revert to replying to earlier messages. OpenAI has shut down these experiments, affecting an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 users. The team also decommissioned a batch of misconfigured inference engines that degraded model quality. Post-fixes, Astra is expected to be more stable in following the latest instructions and performing self-checks. OpenAI also announced an additional user reset.