*as of 9/14; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

Last week saw renewed concerns over the rapid pace of AI’s progress and the potential dangers it presents to humanity, kicked off by a widely-shared resignation letter from an Anthropic researcher. Now, prominent AI leaders are calling for a slowdown in development, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who published an essay on his personal website calling for changes. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI leader Elon Musk parroted those concerns, and politicians across the aisle are supportive of the idea of a slowdown. AI models have been implicated in dangerous hacks in recent months, and just in the last week Anthropic said it thwarted bad actors targeting U.S. warships and attempting to create biological weapons.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Internet conspiracy theorists have had a field day, guessing that something happened in the last week to spook all these CEOs into agreeing to hamper their own company’s efforts. Regardless of whether that is true, there are legitimate concerns over AI’s capabilities, and before we find ourselves in a Skynet future, there need to be safeguards and regulations. The question for investors is how all of this will affect the stock market, which has been boosted by AI gains the past year, and how it will affect private markets dominated by AI startups. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s upcoming IPO could now be in jeopardy and OpenAI is delaying its own offering until 2027.

🪙 Clarity Act vote: The long-awaited crypto bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate today after President Trump agreed to new ethics restrictions that could sway Democratic holdouts. Still, critics believe the ethics rules don’t go far enough and prediction markets only put the odds of the bill becoming law by the end of the year at 20-30%.

🤖 Shield AI raise: The defense tech startup is reportedly in discussions to raise a new funding round at a valuation of at least $20 billion, which would be a 60% jump over its last round in March and nearly quadruple its value from 18 months ago.

🚀 Nasdaq invests in Kraken: Nasdaq's venture arm is investing $100 million into the crypto exchange’s parent company Payward at a $21 billion valuation, around double what it trades at on secondary markets. This partnership is another step towards the tokenization of the stock market and could boost Kraken’s chances of an IPO early next year.

🏢 Malls are back: In the past year, shopping malls have averaged a 13% gain in value, becoming the top-performing commercial real estate asset class after a long downturn. The turnaround has been driven by a lack of new supply, property modernizations, and strong foot traffic from Gen Z consumers.

🏡 Permitting decline: With U.S. residential building permits down 2.2% year-over-year and nearly 20% behind pre-pandemic levels, Sun Belt markets like Austin and San Antonio are falling back the most after booming during the pandemic.

🎨 Bob Ross auction: Two paintings from the PBS legend are being auctioned today and each is expected to fetch six figures after initially being bought on Craigslist a decade ago.

Looking to get out of West Philadelphia and into Bel-Air? Now’s your chance, because the mansion used as the exterior backdrop for Will Smith’s classic 90s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is back on the market with a $7 million price cut. Built in 1937, and owned by the same family since 1978, the 10,000-square-foot, 6 bed/7.5 bath home is actually located in Brentwood, fifteen minutes from Bel-Air. While the show's interior scenes were filmed on a soundstage, the home recently was used for a Netflix show and is instantly recognizable to a generation of TV watchers. Whether that’s worth the $22.5 million price tag is up to you.