Bits + Bips – Details, episodes & analysis

A retired U.S. Major General just explained why Iran's navy is at the bottom of the Gulf — and why the Strait of Hormuz was never actually at risk.

Does it sound like a fit? Don't forget to subscribe! We livestream every Monday at 4:30 pm ET on X, YouTube and Twitch.

General Spider Marks has a brother-in-law who's Iranian — and what he says about why 93 million Persians won't rise up should reframe how investors are reading this war.

Coinbase x402 has processed $34M. Tempo just launched its mainnet. Steven and Laurens discuss how the agentic commerce war is shaping up, why stablecoins are the infrastructure layer underneath it, how to tell real adoption from inflated metrics, and what happens when AI agents start getting scammed.

Ram calls industrials a bubble that's already popped — Caterpillar at 35x PE, hedge funds still deleveraging, and no real capitulation yet. Austin and Chris push back.

Jeff Bezos is raising $100 billion for Project Prometheus to acquire manufacturing companies and transform them with AI. Mark Zuckerberg is building a personal AI CEO agent to bypass management layers at Meta. The question: where does AI value actually accrue? Ram Ahluwalia argues the consumer wins. Venture capital is subsidizing the real economy through tools like Claude that lose money but deliver massive productivity gains. Chris Perkins says people are resilient and will adapt the way influencers emerged from the internet era. The conversation takes a darker turn when Ram warns that declining birth rates combined with cheap robots lower the cost of conflict. When soldiers cost $8,000 at scale, the calculus for war changes entirely. This clip is from a longer conversation on Iran, the Fed, and AI. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/8Pr-oa4N0Bo?si=rfIKIOHRIjYQSWIh Follow @bitsandbips

Elon Musk announced TeraFab, a $25 billion joint chip fabrication venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI targeting two-nanometer process technology. Ram Ahluwalia calls the entire thing bullshit. TSM has invested hundreds of billions to build chip fabs. Tesla generates $3-6 billion in free cash flow. The math doesn’t work without massive dilution. Jensen Huang himself has said data centers in space don’t make sense. Meanwhile Chris Perkins argues that AI layoffs across crypto and tech are a “beautiful excuse” for companies that need to restructure. Ram counters that net engineers are actually being hired, and the companies cutting the most are spending the most on Nvidia GPUs. This clip is from a longer conversation on Iran, the Fed, and AI. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/8Pr-oa4N0Bo?si=WWmYw2LcxkOS9DAV Follow @bitsandbips

With European gas prices running 50-70% above normal, Steven Ehrlich sits down with Sean Murray, Head of Special Projects and Crypto Lead at Fuse Energy, to map the cascade: why gas, not oil, drives what consumers pay for electricity; how the Strait of Hormuz closure and the attack on Qatar's LNG processing facility are rippling through fertilizers, jet fuel, and copper markets; and why Sean argues the long-term supply disruption is being badly underpriced by markets worldwide. Multi-billion dollar facilities don't come back in months. This clip is from a longer conversation on energy markets, DePIN, and Fuse Energy's token launch on Solana. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/RMXJsFT15UA We go live every Monday at 4:30 PM ET — subscribe to catch it live.

Charles Schwab’s chief crypto strategist breaks down why traditional finance valuation frameworks, not narratives, are finally taking hold in digital assets. --- Multichain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create over $50 billion in enterprise value for 80+ clients. Services include TGE support, go-to-market strategy, BD, partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, and KOL activations. Visit ⁠⁠https://www.multichainadv.com/⁠⁠ --- Charles Schwab recently hired Jim Ferraioli to build a dedicated crypto research team, a signal that institutions are moving beyond narrative-driven investing and are taking this asset class seriously.  In this episode, Steven Ehrlich sits down with Jim to explore how traditional finance valuation frameworks apply to crypto. They discuss Bitcoin’s role as a hedge against monetary debasement (not a safe haven), Jim’s cost-of-production model for valuing Bitcoin, and why Ethereum’s dominance in tokenization matters far more than short-term price action.  Most compellingly, Jim argues that today’s Bitcoin prices sit at historical support levels used by the most efficient miners, and that Ethereum’s position as the tokenization standard is nearly unshakeable. If you’ve been waiting for crypto analysis grounded in fundamentals rather than hype, this is the conversation to hear. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven Ehrlich⁠⁠, Head of Research, SharpLink Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jim Ferraioli⁠, Director of Digital Currencies Research and Strategy at Charles Schwab Links: Charles Schwab & Institutional Crypto Research ⁠Jim Ferraioli | Charles Schwab⁠ CoinDesk:  ⁠Liquidity Lifts Bitcoin, but 'Halving Cycle' Fears Could Limit Rally, Says Schwab⁠ Nasdaq:  ⁠Top 4 Reasons More Americans Are Investing in Crypto, According to Schwab⁠ Ethereum Tokenization & Real-World Assets Coindesk:  ⁠The Tokenization Boom: Why Ethereum Remains the Rails for RWA Tokenization⁠ Quantum Computing Risk CoinDesk:  ⁠Bitcoin Isn't Under Quantum Threat Yet, but Upgrading Could Take 5-10 Years⁠ ⁠How Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana Are Preparing for the Quantum Threat

Jim Ferraioli, Director of Crypto Strategy and Research at Charles Schwab, applies a GDP-equivalent framework to smart contract platforms: sum the trailing one-year fees across a network, compare that to market cap, and you get a Buffett-indicator-style read on whether it's cheap or expensive. By that measure, Ethereum has traded in a reliable range for years, and it's currently at the low end. But the more interesting argument is structural. Ethereum's fee base has historically been almost entirely tied to crypto market cap growth. Stablecoin usage, liquid staking, lending, trading — all of it moves with the broader market. Tokenization changes that equation. Real-world assets don't care what Bitcoin is doing. And with Ethereum holding the lion's share of tokenized assets — roughly $350 billion including stablecoins, with the next competitor at around $80 billion — it has a first-mover position that is genuinely hard to dislodge. This clip is from a longer conversation he had with Steven Ehrlich on Bitcoin valuation frameworks, zombie protocols, and quantum risk. Full episode here: https://youtube.com/live/YgDIHGuESJk We go live every Thursday at 12 PM ET. Subscribe to catch it live.