Remy Blaire: Micron topping Wall Street estimates, with a monster sales forecast proving that the insatiable demand for AI memory chips is still accelerating.
But as CapEx soars and intellectual property risks grow, smart capital is rotating beyond chipmakers and toward the equipment makers that build the factories, as well as cybersecurity shields and next-gen infrastructure.
And at the same time, a paradigm shift is underway in crypto. Bitcoin and Ether's share of total sector revenue has plummeted from 98% to just 8%, as real fee-generating protocols do take over.
Joining us live today to discuss Micron, as well as market disruptors and his audit of over 1,300 crypto businesses, is Stephen McBride, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst at RiskHedge.
Stephen, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, there are a lot of moving parts as the final quarter of 2026 gets underway.
So first, starting out with Micron, what do you make of the results? And do you think this boom validates buying chip manufacturing equipment over chipmakers?
Stephen McBride: It's a truly incredible boom for Micron.
You look at where this company was a couple of years ago and where it is now. It just speaks to how big and large the AI buildout is.
I think for the first three or four years of the AI trade, it's all about chasing those bottlenecks.
I think what comes next is investors start to focus on businesses that can generate real, long-term, sustainable value from AI.
So that's what I would be looking to next.
I think also the launch of Meta's AI agent, Muse, and the market moves that it has created tell you that, hey, it's not all just about infrastructure anymore. It's about the apps.
And that's where you're going to find winners in the future, too.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And indeed, you mentioned the gains for Micron, and year to date, that triple-digit gain, even that one-year gain, is quite astounding.
But I do understand that cybersecurity also remains a top megatrend in your portfolio.
So can you walk us through why you think cyber spending might be immune to corporate budget cuts right now?
Stephen McBride: Well, if there's something I can guarantee that you're not going to hear any CIO say in the next couple of years, it's, "Let's slash cyber spending."
Of course, everybody knows AI increases cyber risks.
I think the benefits are way greater than the risks, but you are just going to see an increased amount of money go into cyber companies to try to prevent the AI attacks.
I think you basically want to continue betting on these companies.
It's been a megatrend for almost a decade now, and the AI stuff, it really puts cybersecurity front and center.
So, one of my top picks for the next five years.
Remy Blaire: And I do want to get your perspective on digital assets, in particular crypto.
So the third quarter of 2026 turned out to be quite volatile, but we did see outperformance of ETH, even Solana, compared to Bitcoin, which did see the best gains in several quarters.
But when we're talking about Bitcoin and its share of crypto revenue, it did decline from 98% to 8%.
So where is that other 92% of revenue going today?
Stephen McBride: Going to something most people might not know exists, which is crypto businesses that actually generate revenue and have real products.
Again, Hyperliquid being the standout example here. It's basically a perpetual futures exchange.
But the big thing I think people need to realize about digital assets is it's down in the doldrums. Nobody wants to talk about crypto. It's, you know, it's out of favor.
But Bitcoin and Ethereum back above that 200-day moving average for over a month now, that's been the signal for the end of every bear market.
So I think they're sustaining above the 200-day moving average.
What I think is very different about this run-up is that you're seeing real crypto businesses where actual revenues lead the charge higher.
And I think that's going to be what investors need to focus on going forward.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And I understand that you did a deep dive of over 1,300 crypto firms, and apparently only one passed your test.
So can you walk us through why most fee-earning tokens fail to return value to holders?
Stephen McBride: Of course.
So, Remy, a lot of your listeners may have heard about the regulatory uncertainty in crypto.
And to boil it down, we don't know which tokens are securities and which are commodities.
And the tokens, because of that gray area, are not allowed to share revenues with the token holders.
In the world of stocks, we take this for granted, right? You have a legal claim on the company's profits.
Not the way it works in crypto.
So even when you have a token that generates revenue, it actually might be, in all but name, that the revenue is attached to that token.
So you're seeing some crypto businesses share revenue with users. Those are outperforming.
And as the study showed, hopefully we're going to get some more regulatory certainty in crypto so you can see more protocols turn on the fees, which actually share revenues with users, which I think will be a big deal for the sector.
Remy Blaire: And Stephen, very quickly before I let you go, you argue that identifying a megatrend is only half the battle.
So what is your single most important metric when filtering out market hype?
Stephen McBride: You have to have great businesses that profit from that.
It's no good being invested in cybersecurity or AI if the business underlying it can't make profits from it.
So I think people really want to double down and double-click on those great businesses profiting from some type of disruptive megatrend.
As I mentioned in my new book, Disruption Investing, that is the real key to generating long-term, sustainable profits.
Remy Blaire: Well, Stephen, appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much for joining us as we head into the final quarter of 2026.
Stephen McBride: Thank you, Remy.
