FTX 2.0. Situational Awareness loses 35 billion dollars in a month

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Last Updated on 2 August 2026 by CryptoTips.eu

If you are wondering why stock markets performed so poorly in July, the reason is partly due to Leopold Aschenbrenner, a 24-year-old from Germany who learned stock and crypto trading from—you’ll never guess—Sam Bankman-Fried of the massive crypto platform FTX.

Advertentie.

Bust

Aschenbrenner worked for FTX in 2022 and subsequently lost his job when the major crypto platform went bust. Undeterred, he focused on AI and soon landed a new position, this time at OpenAI. In 2024, he wrote an essay entitled “Situational Awareness”. It became a hit within the industry.

YouTube video

Leopold stated that he wanted to start his own leveraged investment fund which would focus on AI-related stocks. Various board members from OpenAI, Anthropic and other tech companies gave him millions of dollars to invest.

Things went extremely well for about year and a half, and his fund (named after his essay) grew into a true behemoth worth $45 billion at its peak, about a month ago.

However, due to the market correction affecting AI stocks and the fact that Leopold had invested with fourfold leverage, he lost around $35 billion in July. The value of his fund dropped by 67%.

Ken Griffin of the renowned investment firm Citadel decided to take over the remainder of Situational Awareness, and the US media are already calling the insane loss “FTX 2.0.”

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / jeroen@cryptotips.eu
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