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Unchained

Bits + Bips: Is AI CapEx a Bubble? And Is Inflation Already Dead?

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Mag 7 have committed over $700 billion to AI infrastructure, but the companies building the models may never capture the value. Thank you to our sponsors: Adaptive Security Fuse: The Energy Network The BLS just quietly revised away 862,000 jobs, and real-time inflation trackers now peg price growth below 1%, less than half of what official figures report.  If the Fed is steering monetary policy with stale data, investors need to ask what else the models are getting wrong.  At the same time, the Mag 7 have committed more than $700 billion to AI infrastructure, with Anthropic alone projecting $1 trillion in revenue within five years. Is that conviction or the early stages of a debt cycle nobody is pricing?  And then there is the institutional side of crypto: BlackRock's BUIDL fund just landed on Uniswap with $2.4 billion in assets, Apollo acquired $90 million in Morpho tokens, and AI agents are already settling micropayments in stablecoins.  Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Christopher Perkins sit down with Truflation’s CEO Stefan Rust to ask whether the numbers we trust are telling us the truth. Hosts: ⁠Ram Ahluwalia⁠, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida ⁠Austin Campbell⁠, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting ⁠Christopher Perkins⁠, Managing Partner and President of CoinFund Guest: Stefan Rust, Founder and CEO of Truflation Links: Unchained:  BlackRock Just Chose Uniswap. The Market Didn’t Care. Here’s Why. Apollo Moves Into DeFi Lending With Morpho Token Deal UNI Spikes on BlackRock DeFi Move, Then Gives It All Back Macro: NBC: U.S. had almost no job growth in 2025 PBS: Inflation measure falls to nearly five-year low as gas prices fall and housing costs cool Crowdfund Insider: Secretary Of The Treasury Scott Bessent Calls Out Truflation's Inflation Numbers At Senate Banking Hearing AI CapEx: Amazon, Google And Others Are Pouring $700 Billion Into AI CapEx, Top Analyst Explains Why This Makes It 'Hard' To Bet Against Nvidia CIO: Data center capex to hit $1.7 trillion by 2030 due to AI boom Reuters: OpenClaw founder Steinberger joins OpenAI, open-source bot becomes foundation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:27.6

There are echoes of 2008 when you had debt that wasn't worth par, that was being issued at par,

0:36.6

and you had equity securities that were highly inflated.

0:41.5

So I don't think it's great for Mac 7.

0:43.6

We're seeing at the higher end, older generation,

0:47.0

not looking for a new job anymore, just sticking it out.

0:50.1

We're seeing on the younger generation, people graduating,

0:53.5

struggling to actually get a first job. I think the first thing is you're seeing on the younger generation, people graduating, struggling to actually get a first job.

0:56.0

I think the first thing is you're seeing an absolute manifestation that this error of regulatory risk is over.

1:02.0

Under the Gensler error, there's no way Black Rock or Apollo would have come into the space.

1:12.1

Hey everybody, welcome to Bits and Bips, where we're would have come into the space. Hey, everybody.

1:13.3

Welcome to bits and bips, where we explore how crypto and macro collide one basis

1:18.1

point at a time.

1:19.5

I'm your host, Austin Campbell, high scholar of zero knowledge group, here with my co-hosts, as

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