Shares of six companies at the center of bitcoin miners’ push into AI data centers surged Thursday amid reports that Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness — an investor in all six as of March 31 — had liquidated its public-stock portfolio.
As of about midday, IREN (IREN) led the gains, rising 27%, while Bitdeer (BTDR), Riot Platforms (RIOT), CleanSpark (CLSK), Core Scientific (CORZ) and HIVE Digital (HIVE) had each climbed about 20% or more, according to The Block's equities data.
The rise in shares came following the news that former OpenAI researcher Aschenbrenner had been forced to sell off his stock portfolio. The move came as Situational Awareness needed to raise capital "to meet margin requirements," according to CNBC.
Ken Griffin’s investment firm Citadel has purchased the majority of the stocks owned by Situational Awareness, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It is unclear how many shares in the companies Situational Awareness held immediately before the reported liquidation. Its most recent 13F filing showed sizable positions in all six as of March 31, reflecting the fund’s focus on AI data infrastructure, high-performance computing and crypto mining.
The March 31 filing showed Situational Awareness held over $1 billion across the six companies, based on the number of shares held and current prices.
In the 13F filing, the fund said it owned nearly 11.7 million IREN shares valued at over $400 million; 26 million Core Scientific shares valued at about $390 million; 11.5 million Riot Platforms shares valued at $142 million; about 12.3 million CleanSpark shares valued at $104 million; over 3.4 million Bitdeer shares valued at $29.8 million; and 3.4 million HIVE Digital shares valued at $6.4 million.
Separately, the fund reported holding more than 7 million CoreWeave shares valued at $556 million, plus CoreWeave call options representing 1.8 million underlying shares with a reported notional value of $140 million.
Thursday’s sharp rebound in the companies’ shares marked a welcome reversal after weeks of heavy selling across AI-infrastructure and crypto-linked stocks.
Situational Awareness's positions across these companies fit into Aschenbrenner’s broader thesis that power and data-center capacity will become critical as artificial intelligence scales.
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