Digital Asset News host Rob covers inflation data, Trump's Strait of Hormuz policy shift, and Bitcoin market context
Solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel hosted by Rob.
Summary
Three main topics are covered: Trump's formal notification to Congress that hostilities with Iran have resumed, along with a policy reversal replacing a proposed 20% shipping fee through the Strait of Hormuz with investment deals from Gulf states; new CPI data showing inflation falling faster than expected, with year-over-year CPI dropping to 3.5% (from 4.2%) and core CPI year-over-year to 2.6% (from 2.9%); and a broader argument for why Bitcoin remains a compelling long-term hold despite a difficult 2026, supported by a study showing that out of 29,000 companies over 100 years, just 46 stocks drove half of all US market returns. Rob also announces a new website called Price Profits, designed to track and archive Bitcoin price predictions from public figures so they can be held accountable.
Additionally, Rob discusses the ongoing Bitcoin BIP 110 debate among core developers — specifically the argument over whether to reduce blockchain bloat caused by ordinals and NFT-type data, noting the blockchain has grown from around 420GB to 720GB. He also references a CNBC appearance by Chamath Palihapitiya in which Palihapitiya illustrated the rapid commoditization of AI compute pricing across providers including Anthropic, OpenAI, Grok, Google/Gemini, and China's DeepSeek.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Trump Sends Congress Formal Notice on Iran Hostilities
Rob: Looks like inflation is down, Bitcoin is up, but as ever, we have to be aware and do our TA — which is Trump analysis. As you may know already, this has been breaking in the rounds: Trump sends Congress formal notice that Iran conflict has resumed. It looks like a declaration of war. That's what I originally thought when I read this article, but you have to understand what is actually going on.
We've been going back and forth with this since around February or so. It seems like it's been forever. The memorandum of understanding got shut down, there have been different plays going back and forth, and it looks like we're bombing them currently right now. But when these things go back and forth, you would normally see the market dump — but not today.
One of the reasons is this: US President Donald Trump has sent Congress formal notification that hostilities against Iran resumed on July 7th. And people are like, "Wow, really? I didn't know that." We all knew this, but of course it has to be legally sent out. A letter his administration sees as opening a new 60-day window to use the military in the region without congressional approval.
If you want to keep a war going — which is what this is — all you have to do is say, "Yeah, let's just meet back at the negotiation table. Let's sign a ceasefire." And then as it comes through, they're like, "Ah, they broke it, hostilities go back." And guess what — now we're back at it. This will never stop, and this is not what I voted for, but this is where we're at. There are only so many things we can control, so we deal with those things within our sphere of control and move forward.
Trump Replaces 20% Hormuz Fee with Gulf State Investment Deals
Rob: There is some other news on the street of Hormuz, and this is from DJT right from Truth Social, where he says:
Donald Trump: "Oil is flowing like never before — it's the most flow of all time. Sleepy Joe can never make this flow like this. Thanks to the awesome power of the United States military, based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I've decided to replace the 20% United States reimbursement fee with trade and investment deals that the various Gulf states will be making to the United States. Those investments will be massive, and at the same time extraordinarily good for them and their future."
Rob: What he's saying is essentially that the Gulf states are going to be the guardians of the Strait of Hormuz, and every ship that comes through, instead of being charged a 20% fee, the ships and the countries where those ships come from will invest 20% into American businesses.
I think this is a questionable idea — and this is just me — because it's the same thing as going around making these deals and asking, "Are you going to invest in America? Invest in America." How do you actually make that go through? Is it legally binding? Do you have to do this today, or is this in five years or twenty years? How does this actually work? Do you have to do this right on the day the ships go through, or can you wait a very long time? Can you go back on the articles and say, "We didn't understand the stipulations, we're not going to pay for that"?
This is an interesting show that is being put on, but that is where we're at. Here it is from the horse's mouth:
Donald Trump: "It wasn't important for us, but it was important for allies — it was important for people that we get along with very well, including the major Gulf state countries. So I put it out yesterday. I thought it was good. I was called by different people, different countries, kings and amirs and all of the people that we all know and we all love, and they've been, frankly, very strong partners. And they said, 'We'd love to do it a different way. We'd love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars and continue our record-setting — because there's never been a time like this with the United States, with the factories, with the plants, with everything else.'"
Rob: Sounds fantastic. That will take care of our TA portion. Let's get into the economy.
CPI Data: Inflation Falls Faster Than Expected
Rob: It's a good day. It looks like inflation is on the mend and going down toward that magical 2% rate which the US Fed seems to highly covet but never actually maintains.
From the US Bureau of Labor Statistics: CPI month-over-month — the previous was 0.5%, the expectation was to go down just a little to 0.1%, and it actually went down 0.4%. Core CPI month-over-month was supposed to stay at 0.2% and it actually went to zero — that's pretty great. And then CPI year-over-year: originally 4.2%, the expectation was 3.8%, and we went down to 3.5%. That is a magnificent drop.
Now, I don't know exactly where the data itself is coming from. I know the new Federal Reserve chair has taken a look at this and said, "The way that we collect data is outdated. We're not going to call up people and do these different surveys. We're going to get the information right from the technological sources as best as we can." So maybe there's something to that. Maybe they're using different methods. Maybe we see that inflation is going down.
But I know what you're saying right now. You're like, "Rob, everything I'm paying for went up. What the heck are you talking about?" Yes. That's the beauty of it. That's why we invest in Bitcoin — because the government will keep printing money. Did you know we're at an all-time high, and over about a year or so, we printed $3.2 trillion? My thought is this: where are all the people that were saying M2 money supply — as soon as it goes up, Bitcoin goes up? Look how much it's gone up. It isn't always correlated.
But to answer the question I'm sure people have: everything's going to keep going up. That's the beauty of inflation. The government will continue to debase the currency. It will keep putting money into the system. That's why I invest in Bitcoin.
And lastly, the core CPI went from 2.9%. The expectation was 2.8% and it went down to 2.6%. So maybe we get to that area, but right now we're hovering around the three-and-a-halfs. Maybe we hit down at the core CPI to 2%, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Because of that, we had a nice, marvelous little mini pump, and I'll take it. I love these markets because everybody's happier and nobody's all ticked off. Bitcoin is almost $65,644. Ethereum's up — wow, look at that — 6%. BNB 2.6%. XRP 4.2%, and a whole host of others. Pretty much everything's up. And on top of that, the S&P 500 is also rallying — plus 28 points today. Things are going pretty well given what we have.
Bitcoin Year-to-Date ROI in Context
Rob: Taking a look at the markets, it's all about the ROI. I was looking at this today — year-to-date ROI. We think 2026 is a brutal year, right? We think this is very awful. But in all honesty, it's not too bad.
This is the Bitcoin year-to-date ROI going back to January 1st, 2026. Right now we're at 0.72. So if the Bitcoin year-to-date is, say, 0.4, then Bitcoin is down 60%. At 0.72, you're at like 33% down. Really not too bad from the first of the year.
But remember how great 2025 was? Take a look here — 2025 actually didn't go up until May, and then came up in October. I think we all remember that 1.32. But then it flattened out. I think the big year for ROI was actually 2024 — and that of course was when the Bitcoin ETF was approved and everybody was super happy.
So I know we have this idea in our heads about how great things were, but 2025 wasn't that great, quite honestly. And 2026 I don't think is actually that bad.
Study: Only 46 Stocks Drove Half of All US Market Returns Over 100 Years
Rob: The reason I brought up ROI is because in a bear market, people think they blew it — they didn't sell enough, and this is awful. But let me remind you about ROI and just taking a look at stocks.
This is from Bull Theory — definitely a good follow. They put out a study from Arizona State that looked at all the stocks from 1910 to current to see what kind of wealth was created. What it stated was: $91 trillion in wealth was created by the US stock market over a hundred years. Out of 29,000 companies, just seven stocks generated a staggering 24% of it.
I've been in Bitcoin since 2017. It's done very well for me, and I've invested in a lot of other things in traditional markets — haven't done near as well. And to break it down even further: US stocks between 1926 and 2025 had an average annual return of 10%. The next decade's projected return is 3% annualized. Now it may fluctuate — maybe 2.7%, maybe 4%. But as a reminder, inflation is probably going to be sticky around 3%, maybe 2.5%. So if the annualized rate of return is 3% and you're investing in the S&P 500 — which I'm still going to do, I don't care what this says — it's good to diversify. And that's why I will be staying and sticking around with Bitcoin.
As this study also pointed out: S&P 500 risk — 35% of the S&P 500 index comes from the Mag 7. Overvaluation risk: price-to-earnings ratios right now are trading at a 42% premium to the 30-year average. The recommendation is to take a look at global diversification, consider non-US developed and emerging markets, and look at equal-weight indices — which I'm not a really big fan of. I would just stick with the S&P 500, but you could look at the Mag 7 specifically.
But the big thing is this: out of all those stocks in the study — 30,000-plus stocks over 100 years — only 46 stocks drove half of all the market returns. So I know some people may not feel like the greatest and say, "Bitcoin's not doing so good right now." But since I've been in since 2017, it's always the same thing in a bear market — 2018, 2022, and now 2026 — you start to get a little doubt creeping in. But if you just stay the course, I think things will work out just fine.
Historical Bitcoin Bear Market Context
Rob: Here's a little bit of brightness looking at things historically. As a reminder, every four years as far as the cycle goes, we're still 20% higher than our previous all-time high. Four years ago, on July 14th, 2022 — which was a brutal bear market — we were 69% down from the 2021 high, and we only went down to 77%. That's only 8% further to go from here. Even if we went down to 57% or 58% from the top, I'd still be okay with that. And remember, we're 20 points higher than what we were just four years ago. So I think things are okay.
As a reminder, everything is speculation and narrative with a dash of utility. I think Bitcoin has the most utility as far as store of value, but be careful with the altcoins. I own some myself, but just be aware of what's happening.
Ethereum's Revenue Share from L2 Activity
Rob: This is from DB Crypto — a great follow, I linked his information in the description over on X. He had this point out: for every thousand dollars Robinhood makes on its chain — because they're using a Robinhood chain, which is part of Arbitrum — Ethereum gets $1.88. ARK's 14-day audit: $726,000 to Robinhood, $80,000 to Arbitrum, $1,538 to the L1 securing all of it. That's just 0.15% of the revenue flowing to the base layer. You can tell DB's not a big fan of Ethereum.
Then he also put out this one: 5.7 billion in tokenized stock volume last quarter, and 96% of it was on Solana. He says the single quarter is seven times all of H2 2025. Interesting. I have to double-check that one, but it's good to know and keep people's feet to the fire.
Launching Price Profits: A Bitcoin Price Prediction Tracker
Rob: On Sunday I talked about price predictions, and then we followed up on Monday. When we were talking about price predictions, I said it would be a good idea to spin up a website and pull in all the data from all the different price predictions — because some are just awful, ridiculously overzealous. The problem is you'll have the Peter Schiffs and the Dan Penas of the world saying it's going to zero — that's dumb. And then you have the other side, the Tom Lees and the Tim Drapers, saying it's going to a bajillion — that's not plausible, at least not anytime soon.
What would be good is to keep everybody regimented, show people what their predictions were, have the receipts, and then go back to those people and say, "What did you say here? Why did you say that? That doesn't make any sense. You're speculating, you're driving narrative."
So yesterday I told Claude to make me a website, and it did it for me. Claude's great. What it whipped up is going to be called Price Profits — the domain's already bought, so don't try to rug pull me. It's going to show you all the different people: the Peter Schiffs of the world, Crypto Rover, Dr. Profit — and what it's going to do is not go back to 2010. The cutoff is January 1st, 2026, moving forward.
So if they have a prediction on, say, end of year 2026 — Standard Chartered says $100,000, I don't think that's happening. Arthur Hayes says $125,000 by December 2026 — I doubt that's happening. And look at this guy, Rob Wolf here, who says Bitcoin will go to $150,000–$170,000. Oh yeah, I'll put myself on this site. I'm hopefully wrong. And I'll go through Kiyosaki, Draper, Tom Lee, and a whole host of different people.
What I need help from you is: if you want to see what the call is, it'll reference you to the actual website where it's quoted, or for me it'll go right to the YouTube video. Michael Saylor — $1 million. Cathie Wood — $710,000 by 2030. That might actually happen, who knows.
If you want to help out, click on Submit the Call — who made the call, what's the platform, give me the link, what's the direction, the call type, what's the target price, the deadline, and the big thing is the source. If you don't give me the source, you can't submit it for review. I want everybody on this, so later on when they say, "I didn't say that" — "Oh, really?" And if they try to delete their post, guess what? It's going to be on the Wayback Machine. Every single one of their price predictions — I'm going to save every single one.
Q&A
Rob: Let's get into the Q&A.
Plato says: "Solana is an anagram for 'a last no' — says it all really." Some people hate Solana, some people hate Ethereum, some people hate Dogecoin — which I don't understand. It's worthless, but it's got a great community. What's not to like?
Leisure says: "Rob, you buying SpaceX?" Yeah, I'll buy it, but I need to wait a little bit. I need to wait for that unlock. If you've ever been part of ICOs or IPOs, you know what I'm talking about. One of the things I learned was the unlock period. There is roughly 30% of the original private investors that are going to be released — I want to say it's the first week of August. And they're able to unlock even more if there was a certain price threshold, which I believe they hit. So I'm going to wait for the private investors who are probably up pretty big and are going to slowly sell off. If they're smart, they're not going to dump everything — they'll just slowly drip it in over months and years. So I'm just going to wait a little bit, but I do believe in it.
Jerry from Costa Rica has a good thesis — he's just going to invest in Tesla, which has been kind of flat, because he thinks everything's going to go underneath that umbrella. My big thing is I like Tesla, I like Cloudflare for AI, and another one I like is Google. Google did a 2x in the last 365 days. I think it's because they're really starting to catch up on the AI narrative.
If you guys have time, I would recommend you watch a video — they had Chamath Palihapitiya with Joe Kernen on CNBC. What he talked about in the first couple of minutes was AI and how he gave a great example: if AI compute is like oil and oil costs, say, $80, he said Anthropic is selling it to you for $50, OpenAI is selling it to you for $45, Elon Musk is coming at you with $1.50, Google and Gemini are coming at you with a dollar, and China and DeepSeek are coming at you with a quarter. He said, "At some point those prices are going to catch up, and the people that understand it are going to go to the other ones and say, 'Why am I paying so much money over here?'" It made a lot of sense. Alphabet by Google is up almost 100% over a year.
Toaster asks about MicroStrategy. I don't have any of it. I wish Saylor the best because it's good for all our bags. But I will tell you this — the argument between the core devs for Bitcoin around BIP 110 was interesting. I was listening to Bitcoin University from Matthew Kratter. BIP 110 seeks to eliminate or decrease the amount of bloat available on the Bitcoin blockchain. I didn't know this, but the blockchain has blown up over the last five years from around 420 gigabytes to 720 gigabytes to download the whole chain — correct me in the comments. One of the reasons for that is the spam, the ordinals, and other NFT-type plays that live on the blockchain. And because of that, there is also illicit material embedded within the Bitcoin blockchain.
There are two different arguments for this. One is: it's decentralized, you can't tell us what to do, you increase the block size so we can put anything we want on it — that's Bitcoin. The second part is: you're making everything bloated and slowing everything down. We don't need that. That wasn't what Bitcoin was originally designed to do. Satoshi Nakamoto in the white paper — it was supposed to be peer-to-peer transactions. We had no idea what memes or ordinals were. We shouldn't even have it on there. And people will say, "Yeah, but when we discovered iron ore in the early advent of man, we never understood that we'd use it to make skyscrapers." So technology will change — I get all that. I personally don't like the bloat. I don't like the material that's on there. I don't think we need ordinals. And I'd go the other way.
Master Blaster says: "Hermes agent plus super Grok equals devastating crypto research tool." Master Blaster is correct. I started off with OpenAI — nothing but problems — but I just use Claude now and it works out much better for me.
The website will be available today or tonight at some point. I'll let you guys know the address later, but I do need everybody's help to submit calls and fill this stuff out. It's going to be interesting to see who's right. Maybe Arthur Hayes will be right. Maybe Bitwise will be right. Maybe Tim Draper. No, he's not going to be right. We will see.