The marriage between bitcoin and artificial intelligence is not taboo. However, some want to make it very concrete. A former OpenAI researcher, fired for talking too much, transforms this vision into a financial war machine. Leopold Aschenbrenner, 24, is betting billions on a simple observation: AI will eat up all the available electricity, and bitcoin miners already have the sockets plugged in.
In brief
- Leopold Aschenbrenner, former OpenAI researcher fired in 2024, now manages $5.5 billion via his Situational Awareness hedge fund.
- His fund is betting heavily on Bloom Energy and legacy bitcoin miners like Core Scientific and IREN.
- The investment thesis is based on the explosion in electricity and infrastructure needs for artificial intelligence.
- Despite criticism from his former AI safety peers, his fund grew 47% in the first half of 2025.
Bitcoin and AI: the 5 billion bet of the prodigy fired from OpenAI
First, let's establish the character. Leopold Aschenbrenner has a CV that reads like a spy novel. At 17, he won a grant from the Emergent Ventures fund. At 19, he was valedictorian at Columbia. Then he joined the Future Fund of FTX, the foundation of Sam Bankman-Fried just before the explosion.
Then OpenAI hired him on its “superalignment” team. And there it goes wrong. In April 2024, he was fired for sharing sensitive information. He maintains that he was warning about the inadequacy of security in the face of Chinese spies. Never mind. Two months after his departure, he published “Situational Awareness”, a 165-page pamphlet which predicted the imminent arrival of the AGI. The text goes viral. Ivanka Trump herself greets him. Above all, he caught the eye of Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and the Collison brothers from Stripe.
These Silicon Valley pundits entrust him funds : his hedge fund, Situational Awareness LP, was born. It currently has more than $5 billion in market exposure.
Why a hedge fund is buying bitcoin miners to feed AI
Next, let's look at what he buys with this money. The latest SEC filings are instructive. The fund's biggest position? Bloom Energy, a fuel cell manufacturer. Then come names that surprise: Core Scientific, IREN, Cipher Mining. Former bitcoin miners, in dire straits a few months ago, suddenly become nuggets for artificial intelligence.
Aschenbrenner understood before anyone else that these companies have what AI will need most: industrial sites with massive access to electricity, installed cooling systems, connections to the network. Bitcoin mining becoming less profitable? Whatever. Their assets are worth gold to AI.
A friend of Anthropic, Sholto Douglas, explains the man's philosophy:
He says: I have extreme conviction about how the world is going to evolve, and I literally put my money where my mouth is.
The billionaire outcast his former AI friends don't want to see anymore
Finally, the tastiest paradox. Aschenbrenner comes from AI safety circles, researchers obsessed with the existential risks of artificial intelligence. He was one of them, shared their fears, their fights to slow down the race to the AGI.
Today, many call him a traitor. A former OpenAI researcher tells Fortune:
Some people who are very worried about existential risks really don't like Leopold now because of what he did. They think he sold his soul.
Yet Aschenbrenner put almost his entire personal fortune into the fund. He doesn't just predict the future, he acts. His friends, like Douglas, defend him tooth and nail. So, genius or opportunist? Both, undoubtedly.
But with 5 billion on the table and bets that yield 47% in six months, the question becomes almost secondary.
The Aschenbrenner fund in key figures
- $5.5 billion: the fund's total exposure to US markets;
- Bloom Energy: the largest position ahead of ex-bitcoin miners;
- 47%: the performance of the fund in the first half of 2025, after fees;
- $70,380: the price of bitcoin at the time of writing;
- Core Scientific, IREN, Cipher Mining: nuggets from mining.
At Anthropic, the AI company where some of his friends come from, discussions with the Pentagon have resumed. Negotiating with the American military is no longer a taboo. It goes to show that even idealists end up dealing with the real world. Leopold just got a head start.
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