SBF's subordinate turned 225 million into 5.5 billion in one year

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

Have you heard of Leopold Aschenbrenner?

He is one of the hottest names in the AI investment circle right now — at just 24 years old, his Situational Awareness LP fund had a public holdings size of only $225 million in Q4 2024, but in the disclosed holdings for Q4 2025 last month, that number skyrocketed to $5.5 billion.

Few know that Leopold Aschenbrenner was once also part of the crypto world — he previously worked for FTX’s FTX Future Fund team until FTX’s bankruptcy and collapse.

A doctor’s family background and AI genius

Leopold Aschenbrenner was born in Germany to a family of doctors.

In 2021, at age 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 often cited by FTX founder SBF. Perhaps sharing similar ideals, Leopold Aschenbrenner joined the FTX Future Fund team in February 2022, a charitable initiative created by the FTX Foundation to promote effective altruism. He worked there until just before FTX’s collapse in November 2022.

In 2023, after leaving FTX, Leopold Aschenbrenner joined OpenAI, now a leading AI company, working in the Superalignment team led by the renowned Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike. The team focuses on technological breakthroughs to guide and control superintelligent AI systems.

In April 2023, OpenAI’s internal communication system was hacked, though the company did not publicly disclose this. Leopold Aschenbrenner then submitted a memo to the OpenAI board criticizing the company’s security measures. He later stated that this memo caused disagreements between the board and management over security issues, and he received a warning from HR.

In April 2024, OpenAI dismissed Leopold Aschenbrenner on suspicion of information leaks, but he countered that the so-called “leak” involved sharing a “brainstorming” document with three external researchers merely to seek feedback. OpenAI claimed the dismissal was unrelated to the security memo he submitted earlier, but Leopold Aschenbrenner said someone explicitly told him that the memo was the main reason for his firing. Just a month later, the Superalignment team disbanded, and other prominent AI researchers, including Ilya Sutskever, left OpenAI.

Interestingly, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s conflicts with OpenAI are not limited to this — his fiancée, Avital Balwit, is now the chief of staff at Anthropic, a major competitor of OpenAI… and FTX was also an early major investor in Anthropic.

Leaving the tech frontline for the investment world

In June 2024, just two months after leaving OpenAI, Leopold Aschenbrenner published a 165-page super paper titled “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead.” The paper predicts the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), envisions pathways from AGI to superintelligence, discusses four major risks facing humanity, outlines strategies to address superintelligence, and presents the principles of “AGI realism.”

“Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead” sparked huge discussions in Silicon Valley, boosting Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fame. Subsequently, in September 2024, he founded a fund of the same name, Situational Awareness LP, serving as Chief Investment Officer, focusing on AI industry investment opportunities.

The initial fund size of Situational Awareness LP has not been publicly disclosed, but according to reports from WSJ, Fortune, and other mainstream media in mid-2025, the fund’s assets under management were about $1.5 billion at that time. LPs include Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and well-known investor Daniel Gross.

Based on the 13F filings disclosed by Situational Awareness LP (quarterly reports required by the SEC for funds managing over $100 million), in Q4 2024, the fund’s public holdings totaled only about $255 million. However, in the Q4 2025 holdings report released on February 16, that figure had grown to an astonishing $5.5 billion.

Considering that Situational Awareness LP was newly established in Q4 2024, it likely had some reserve capital beyond its disclosed holdings. Even starting with a total AUM of around $1.5 billion in mid-2025, reaching a disclosed position of $5.5 billion in Q4 of the same year is remarkably fast.

Position analysis: still with crypto shadows

In its 13F, Situational Awareness LP disclosed 29 major holdings, detailed in the chart below.

As shown, the fund’s bets on AI are not concentrated on the more popular application side but focus on upstream infrastructure sectors.

The top ten holdings account for 86% of the portfolio, indicating high concentration, mainly in energy, computing power, optical communications, and storage.

The largest position, Bloom Energy, focuses on solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and electrolysis (SOEC) technology development. Driven by increasing demand from AI data centers, the company’s performance has continued to exceed expectations, with its stock price rising over tenfold since late 2024.

Big names like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are absent from the holdings, suggesting a preference for relatively “less popular” targets.

The only short position disclosed is in Indian software exporter Infosys, via options, seemingly betting that developments in Claude Code and Codex will replace traditional IT outsourcing.

Another clue related to crypto is the presence of several Bitcoin mining companies in the holdings, such as Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, Iren (formerly Iris Energy), and Bitdeer under Wu Jihan. However, it appears that the fund is not directly betting on these companies’ crypto operations but on their transition toward AI computing centers — as AI trends grow and crypto markets remain sluggish, more mining firms are leveraging land, computing power, and electricity resources to pivot. A related article on this trend will be published soon.

Fate’s fork, belief’s reconstruction

Looking back at Leopold Aschenbrenner’s career, it’s hard not to think of another young genius with a halo — SBF. Both worked at FTX, believed in effective altruism, and achieved notable success in investing. But after one wrong step, SBF is now behind bars, facing decades of imprisonment; meanwhile, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s life took a different fork after FTX’s sudden collapse, and fortunately, it seems to be a path better suited for him.

Time does not turn back, and fate rarely gives a second chance. Some are forever left in the ruins of the old era, others are forced off their original tracks, but new stories begin.

As a member of the crypto industry, what comes to mind now is — the industry is at its most uncertain and fragile moment since its birth. Some leave in disappointment, some hesitate and watch, but others actively embrace new technological waves and narratives. History often repeats itself: when old stories collapse, new stories are born. Rebuilding faith is also another kind of opportunity.

Related articles:

“CZ missed the best investment day of his life, and crypto missed AI”;

“The FTX that was dead for three years donated $650,000 — who benefits from effective altruism?”