Have you heard of Leopold Aschenbrenner?

He is one of the hottest names in today’s AI investment circles — at just 24 years old, the Situational Awareness LP fund he founded had a publicly disclosed portfolio size of only $225 million in Q4 2024, but by the latest 2025 Q4 holdings disclosure released last month, that figure has surged to an astonishing $5.5 billion.

What few know is that Leopold Aschenbrenner was once a part of the crypto world — he previously worked with the FTX Future Fund team at FTX until its collapse and bankruptcy.

The AI Prodigy from a Medical Dynasty

Leopold Aschenbrenner was born in Germany, where both of his parents were physicians.

In 2021, at the age of 19, Leopold Aschenbrenner graduated from Columbia University with top honors, earning dual degrees in Economics and Mathematical Statistics. During his time at Columbia, he co-founded the university’s Effective Altruism (EA) chapter.

Effective Altruism was a core principle frequently cited by SBF, the founder of FTX. Perhaps due to shared ideology, Leopold Aschenbrenner joined the FTX Future Fund team in February 2022, a philanthropic initiative established by the FTX Foundation aimed at advancing effective altruism. He remained with the team until shortly before FTX’s collapse in November 2022.

In 2023, after leaving FTX, Leopold Aschenbrenner transitioned to OpenAI, joining the Superalignment team led by Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike. This elite research group focuses on technical breakthroughs to guide and control artificial intelligence systems that surpass human intelligence.

In April 2023, OpenAI's internal communication systems were breached by hackers, though the company did not publicly disclose the incident. Leopold Aschenbrenner promptly submitted a memorandum to the OpenAI Board, arguing that the company’s security protocols were inadequate. He later stated that this memo caused a rift between the board and management over security concerns, and he received a warning from HR.

In April 2024, OpenAI terminated Leopold Aschenbrenner, citing alleged information leaks. However, he countered that the so-called “leak” actually referred to sharing a brainstorming document with three external researchers solely for feedback. OpenAI claimed the termination was unrelated to the prior security memo, while Leopold insisted someone explicitly told him the memo was the primary reason for his dismissal. Just one month later, the Superalignment team was disbanded, and prominent AI researchers including Ilya Sutskever departed OpenAI.

Interestingly, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s conflict with OpenAI extends beyond this single incident — his fiancée, Avital Balwit, now serves as Chief of Staff at Anthropic, OpenAI’s biggest competitor … and historically, FTX was one of Anthropic’s earliest major investors.

Stepping Back from Tech’s Front Lines, Entering the Investment Arena

In June 2024, just two months after leaving OpenAI, Leopold Aschenbrenner published a 165-page whitepaper titled *Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead*. The paper spans multiple chapters, forecasting the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), outlining a pathway from AGI to superintelligence, describing four existential risks facing humanity, summarizing strategies to respond to superintelligence, and articulating the principles of "AGI Realism."

The paper sparked widespread debate across Silicon Valley, catapulting Leopold Aschenbrenner into prominence. Subsequently, in September 2024, he launched a fund of the same name — Situational Awareness LP — serving as its Chief Investment Officer, focusing exclusively on investment opportunities within the AI value chain.

The initial fund size of Situational Awareness LP remains undisclosed, but according to mainstream media reports from WSJ, Fortune, and others in mid-2025, the fund’s total assets under management were approximately $1.5 billion at that time. Limited partners include Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and renowned investor Daniel Gross.

Based on the 13F filings (quarterly disclosures required by the SEC for funds managing over $100 million) submitted by Situational Awareness LP, as of Q4 2024, the fund’s publicly disclosed holdings totaled only $255 million; however, in the most recent 2025 Q4 filing released on February 16th, this number had ballooned to a staggering $5.5 billion.

Considering that Situational Awareness LP was only recently established in Q4 2024, it likely still holds significant unlisted capital alongside its $255 million disclosed positions. Even using the ~$1.5 billion AUM reported in mid-2025 as a starting point, the jump to $5.5 billion in public holdings by Q4 2025 represents an extraordinary pace of growth.

Holding Analysis: Lingering Crypto Shadows

Situational Awareness LP disclosed 29 major holdings in its 13F filing — details are visible in the chart below.

As shown in the chart, Situational Awareness LP’s AI bets are not concentrated on the more publicly hyped application layer, but rather focused on upstream infrastructure within the AI supply chain.

· The top ten holdings account for 86% of the portfolio, reflecting a highly concentrated strategy, primarily targeting energy, compute, optical communications, and storage sectors.

· The largest position is Bloom Energy, which specializes in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technology. Driven by surging demand from AI data centers, the company has consistently exceeded expectations, with its stock rising over 10x since the end of 2024.

· Major names like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google do not appear in the holdings, suggesting Situational Awareness LP prefers relatively less-followed, niche opportunities.

· The fund’s sole disclosed short position is an options-based short against Infosys, an Indian IT services exporter — seemingly betting that the rise of Claude Code and Codex will displace traditional IT outsourcing roles.

An additional link to the crypto world lies in the fact that Situational Awareness LP’s portfolio includes several Bitcoin mining firms, such as Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, Iren (formerly Iris Energy), and Bitdeer, owned by Wu Jihan.

However, it’s important to clarify: what Situational Awareness LP appears to be targeting isn’t these companies’ direct crypto-related operations, but rather their strategic pivot toward becoming AI compute hubs. With AI momentum building and the crypto market in a prolonged downturn, an increasing number of mining firms are leveraging their existing advantages in land, compute capacity, and power to transform themselves. A teaser: we’ll publish another article soon exploring this trend in depth.

A Fork in the Road, Reconstructing Belief

Looking back at Leopold Aschenbrenner’s career trajectory, it’s hard not to draw parallels with another once-glowing prodigy, SBF — both worked at FTX, both believed in effective altruism, and both delivered standout results in investing. But one misstep later, SBF now sits behind bars, facing decades of imprisonment. In contrast, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s life took a different fork following FTX’s sudden collapse — and fortunately, it seems to be the path better suited for him.

Time cannot turn back, nor does fate offer second chances. Some remain trapped in the ruins of the old era, while others are forced off their original tracks — yet find themselves opening entirely new stories.

As a participant in the crypto industry, my immediate thought is this: the sector is experiencing its most uncertain and transformative moment since inception. Some depart in disillusionment, others hesitate in observation, but many actively embrace new technological waves and narrative shifts. History often unfolds this way — when old stories crumble, new ones begin. Reconstructing belief may well be another form of opportunity.