
newsFeb 18, 20261:07:00pending
Bits + Bips: Is AI CapEx a Bubble? And Is Inflation Already Dead?
About this episode
The Mag 7 have committed over $700 billion to AI infrastructure, but the companies building the models may never capture the value.
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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
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