Citadel Unwinds 80% of Situational Awareness Risk After Bitcoin Miner Selloff

Citadel has unloaded more than 80% of the risk it took on from Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness portfolio, easing a major source of selling pressure on Bitcoin mining stocks.

The AI-focused fund, managed by former OpenAI researcher Aschenbrenner, surged 439% during the first half of 2026 before suffering a dramatic reversal. With leverage of roughly four-to-one, Situational Awareness lost 67% in July and transferred about $10 billion in equities to Citadel on July 30.

A regulatory filing covering June 30 showed the fund held $20.24 billion across only 26 positions. Bitcoin miners accounted for about $1.99 billion, or less than 10% of the portfolio, despite miner exposure increasing 79% during the quarter.

Core Scientific represented the largest mining position at $666 million, followed by Riot Platforms at $468 million, IREN at $433 million and CleanSpark at $179 million. The fund also owned a $152 million position in Keel Infrastructure, formerly Bitfarms. Riot exposure alone had jumped 229%.

Aschenbrenner’s interest in Bitcoin miners was largely tied to their energy infrastructure rather than direct exposure to Bitcoin. Mining companies control substantial power capacity that could potentially support rapidly expanding AI data centers.

However, the portfolio’s biggest vulnerability came from semiconductor stocks. In March, Situational Awareness held approximately $8.5 billion in put options against Nvidia, Oracle, Broadcom and other AI-related companies. Most of those hedges had disappeared by June, while outright long positions climbed to $12.5 billion. Sandisk and Micron represented 55.6% of the portfolio.

When chip stocks declined in July, the heavily leveraged fund had limited downside protection, leaving its Bitcoin mining positions caught in the resulting liquidation.

Citadel subsequently distributed the acquired risk through nearly 100 block trades worth more than $4 billion. Ken Griffin told clients that the firm’s ability to rapidly distribute those positions was central to its strategy.

With Citadel now having cleared most of the inherited exposure, Bitcoin miners may face less forced selling. Improving crypto sentiment could also help, as Bitcoin recently jumped about 7% to roughly $77,309, giving the cryptocurrency a market capitalization near $1.55 trillion.