Situational Awareness made 439% in six months. Then margin calls took its entire stock book in one trade. Ken Griffin’s Citadel bought it.

A quarter of that fund’s last reported stock holdings were Bitcoin miners. That was not an accident, and it is why crypto investors are reading this story closely.

Who Is Leopold Aschenbrenner?

OpenAI hired him for its Superalignment team in 2023 and let him go in April 2024. He has said he was pushed out for raising safety concerns.

In June 2024 he published an essay series called Situational Awareness. Its central claim was blunt.

“AGI by 2027 is strikingly plausible,” Leopold Aschenbrenner, in his essay series Situational Awareness, June 2024.

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AGI means software that matches humans at most tasks. But the essay did more than predict it. One chapter argued the real bottleneck would be physical. Power contracts, transformers and electricity supply, not chips.

He then built a hedge fund on that idea. Its first stock disclosure, covering December 2024, listed six holdings worth $254.8 million.

Every one was a power or chip company. Not one was crypto. That changed quickly.

What Happened to Situational Awareness This Week

July went badly. The fund owned memory chip makers like SK Hynix, which fell hard in the AI memory stock selloff.

It had also bet against software firms such as Adobe. That trade pays off when a stock drops. Those shares rose instead. The wider market went the same way. The Nasdaq-100 fell 10% from its early June peak.

Borrowed money turned a bad month into a forced one. The fund had used loans to hold more stock than its own cash could cover.

When prices fell, its lenders wanted more money behind those loans. That demand is a margin call.

CNBC named Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase as the brokers involved. It also reported the fund had grown to $45 billion by the start of July.

Then it unwound every public stock position, CNBC said. Griffin’s Citadel hedge fund agreed to buy them. Millennium Management and Jane Street looked and passed, Bloomberg reported.

Where Do Bitcoin Miners Come In?

Crypto readers mostly missed this part. Situational Awareness became one of mining’s larger shareholders, and it happened fast.

Big US funds must list their stock holdings every three months on a form called a 13F. Five exist for this fund. Read in order, they show a bet being built.

The latest filing lists 29 holdings worth $5.52 billion. Miners and their data center arms make up $1.38 billion of it.

Core Scientific was the largest at $418.7 million. IREN came next at $328.6 million, then Applied Digital at $278 million.

Cipher Mining, Riot Platforms, Hut 8, WhiteFiber, Bitdeer, CleanSpark and Bitfarms made up the rest.

The whole disclosed book grew nearly 22 times in a year. The mining share went from nothing to a quarter of it.

So the AGI fund became a mining fund by design. His essay said the bottleneck was power. Miners own power, land and cooling, which is why miners became AI powerhouses.

There is a catch for shareholders. Anyone holding these stocks in July shared the trade with a fund facing margin calls. No mining company knew, so none of them said so.

Did Citadel Engineer This?

One theory spread fast. It says Citadel scared the market about rate hikes, waited for Leopold to break, then bought his stocks cheap.

The first part is true. Frank Flight, who runs macro strategy at Citadel Securities, published a note on July 27. He wrote that he now expected a rate hike at the July meeting.

Bloomberg reported the call added to market nerves. Two days later, a Griffin firm bought the stock book.

Four things break the theory.

• First, there are two Citadels.

Citadel Securities buys and sells stocks for other people. Citadel is the hedge fund. They are separate firms.

• Second, Flight had company.

PGIM and Wrightson ICAP also called for a hike. Bond veteran Harley Bassman wanted one twice as big.

• Third, the fear came first.

Bloomberg tied it to oil prices rising after the US and Iran clashed again, plus a strong job market.

• Fourth, the Fed did not hike.

It held rates steady, and three of its 12 voting members wanted a quarter-point rise.

That last detail matters. It was the first time since September 2016 that three officials dissented in the same direction. The pressure to raise rates was real, and it sat inside the Fed.

What Nobody Can Answer Yet

Did Citadel get a bargain? Nobody outside the deal knows. Neither firm will say what it paid.

Some think the forced selling mattered anyway. On CNBC, Jim Cramer argued it looked like a clearing event that could mark a bottom for the AI trade.

The tape says something simpler. Microsoft reported strong results on Wednesday night and rose about 15%.

Chip stocks jumped the next day. One big chip index rose 6.7% and snapped a five-day losing streak.

One block trade does not move a whole chip index. An earnings report can.

Six days before all of it, Aschenbrenner had told his investors to add money.

“PS. At times we call out opportunities that seem like a particularly good time to add funds, if you have been waiting for one,” Leopold Aschenbrenner, in the July 24 investor letter as reported by the Financial Times.

He got the direction right. He just did not own the stocks anymore.

The fund is not dead. It still holds private stakes, including Anthropic, which filed confidential IPO paperwork on June 1.

Miners spent 10 years being called a curiosity. It took one AI fund’s margin call to make them matter.

The post Up 439%, Then Margin-Called: Did Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness Actually Blow Up? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Amazon shares surged in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company delivered a blowout second-quarter earnings report, beating Wall Street expectations across revenue, AWS sales, operating income, and earnings per share.

The results reinforced investor confidence that Amazon’s massive AI infrastructure spending is translating into accelerating cloud growth and stronger profitability.

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Amazon Beats Wall Street Across Key Metrics

Amazon reported Q2 net sales of $200.6 billion, comfortably above analyst estimates of approximately $197 billion. The company also posted operating income of $27.46 billion, exceeding expectations of around $23.6 billion, while operating margin expanded to 13.7%, above the expected 12%.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came from earnings. Amazon reported earnings per share of $5.75, far ahead of the consensus estimate of $1.82, highlighting significantly stronger profitability than analysts anticipated.

The earnings release immediately fueled investor optimism, sending Amazon shares from a regular-session close of $235.50 to roughly $251 in after-hours trading, representing a gain of more than 6.5% after the closing bell.

AWS Growth Shows Amazon’s AI Spending Is Paying Off

The strongest signal from the report came from Amazon Web Services.

AWS generated $42.23 billion in revenue during the quarter, surpassing expectations of roughly $40.57 billion. Cloud revenue grew approximately 37% year-over-year, marking AWS’s fastest expansion in roughly 18 quarters.

For investors, AWS remains Amazon’s most closely watched business because it serves as the company’s primary AI infrastructure engine.

Chief Executive Andy Jassy has repeatedly defended Amazon’s aggressive capital investment strategy, maintaining plans to spend roughly $200 billion during 2026 to expand AI data centers, networking infrastructure, and custom silicon capabilities.

The latest earnings suggest those investments are beginning to translate into accelerating customer demand rather than simply higher expenses.

Investors Reward Amazon’s AI Strategy

Heading into earnings, investors questioned whether Amazon could match the strong cloud performance recently reported by Microsoft while justifying its enormous AI capital expenditures.

Instead, Amazon exceeded expectations across nearly every major operating metric.

The combination of stronger AWS growth, expanding operating margins, and better-than-expected profitability eased concerns that AI spending would pressure near-term earnings. Investors instead viewed the results as evidence that Amazon’s infrastructure investments are already supporting faster revenue growth.

Although some of the earnings benefit included non-operating gains, the company’s underlying operating performance remained well ahead of Wall Street forecasts.

What’s Next for Amazon?

Attention now shifts toward Amazon’s second-half execution as management continues rolling out AI infrastructure and expanding AWS services.

Investors will closely monitor whether AWS can maintain its accelerated growth trajectory while Amazon continues one of the largest capital investment programs in corporate history. Future earnings will also provide a clearer picture of whether AI-driven demand can continue supporting margin expansion and justify the company’s long-term spending plans.

If AWS momentum remains intact, Amazon could further strengthen its position in the increasingly competitive AI cloud market alongside Microsoft and Google.

The report also arrives at a pivotal moment for the AI investment race, with Microsoft and other tech giants raising the bar on cloud performance. Amazon’s latest numbers suggest its AI strategy is beginning to generate tangible financial returns.

The post Amazon AI Bet Pays Off as Q2 Earnings Crush Expectations: How Will Stock React? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Robinhood (HOOD) stock closed at $89.84 on July 29, down 3.15%, slipping under $90 even after the company posted its best quarter ever.

The drop was not really about the numbers. HOOD has fallen about 14% in five days and roughly 20% this year, so the weakness runs deeper than one earnings report.

HOOD Earnings Beat, but the Market Sold the News

Robinhood reported record revenue of $1.31 billion, up 32% from a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings came in at $0.62 per share, far above the roughly $0.42 that analysts expected.

The mix told the real story. Prediction markets generated $156 million, overtaking both equities at $129 million and crypto at $100 million for the first time.

That shift matters because crypto revenue fell 38% year over year, after an even sharper crypto revenue slide in the prior quarter, yet total revenue still hit a record. However, the year-to-date stock price weakness persisted.

Robinhood now runs 13 businesses above $100 million in annual revenue, far from its meme-broker image. One markets account said Robinhood “proved it’s more than a crypto stock.” And that outlook is now visible in the analysts’ calls.

In the days before the report, the latest analyst calls stayed split but constructive. Barclays and Truist both reiterated buy ratings, with a Barclays Robinhood price target of $122, while JP. Morgan and Morgan Stanley kept hold ratings at $99 and $124.

Want more insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Newsletter here.

Each target still sat near or above the price, so Wall Street was not braced for a collapse. The company also kept buying back stock under a buyback plan it authorized earlier this year.

Part of the profit came from a one-time gain, which invites some caution on earnings quality. Even so, a double beat could not lift the shares.

Options Traders Are Still Hedging for Downside

Robinhood’s options market shows lingering caution. The put-call ratio, which weighs bearish put bets against bullish calls, sits near 0.66 in open interest, a high reading that favors puts.

The volume ratio has climbed toward 0.60 as well. That rise suggests desks kept adding downside hedges around the earnings date rather than betting on a pop.

Hedging shows fear, however, and not always where cash is truly flowing.

Money Flow Improves as Selling Pressure Fades

Deeper data hints the selling may be cooling. Chaikin Money Flow (CMF), a gauge of whether institutional money is buying or selling, reads -0.09 and tried to cross above zero around July 24.

It failed, so institutions are likely still net sellers. Yet, CMF rose between July 27 and July 28 while the price fell, a small bullish divergence. This shows that the big institutional money is bleeding less as compared to the price. However, the CMF needs to move above zero for the HOOD stock to show price-specific positivity.

Volume backs that up. Selling volume has thinned since early July even as the stock dropped, which suggests that even retail sellers are losing steam.

None of this confirms a bottom, though, so the HOOD price chart has to settle the argument.

Robinhood Stock Price Levels That Decide the Next Move

The chart still looks weak. Since June 9, Robinhood has traced a head and shoulders pattern, a topping shape where a high sits between two lower peaks, and it broke down on July 24, days before earnings. The breakdown structure still remains intact, which now explains why the options traders lean bearish.

The breakdown has stalled at $89.87, which also marks the 0.786 Fibonacci retracement. If that floor holds, the roughly 21% target near $76.53 may not fill, especially after a near 10% drop.

A hold above $89.87 and a reclaim of $93.84 would open room back toward the analyst targets. Real strength, however, only returns above $108.45, the right shoulder, which looks distant for now.

For now, $89.87 separates a possible rebound from a deeper slide toward $76.53.

The post Robinhood Sank After a Blowout Quarter: Rebound, or a Slide to $76? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov said Russian authorities designated him a “terrorist” after he refused government demands for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging platform, responding publicly a day after Russia announced charges against him.

In a Telegram post on Thursday, Durov also said Russia had barred him from “publishing information on the Internet,” adding that authorities had “got confused about who can ban whom from the Internet.”

Source: Telegram, Pavel Durov

The comments came a day after Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Durov of facilitating terrorist activity, alleging Telegram failed to remove channels used by terrorist groups and Ukrainian intelligence services.

The case builds on a criminal investigation Russia launched in February, when regulators accused Telegram of leaving nearly 155,000 channels, chats and bots online despite claims they violated Russian laws covering extremist content, terrorism, drug trafficking and other illicit activity.

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Related: Pavel Durov says Telegram to roll out native Gram crypto wallet

Durov’s legal battles extend beyond Russia

The Russian case adds to Durov’s legal challenges abroad. Durov was arrested in France in August 2024 and remains under judicial investigation over allegations that Telegram facilitated criminal activity by failing to adequately moderate illegal content and respond to law enforcement requests. 

Durov has denied wrongdoing, arguing that French authorities failed to follow due process in seeking information from Telegram. His arrest also prompted a TON Community-backed campaign that collected more than 9 million signatures on an open letter urging French authorities to release him.

French authorities initially allowed Durov to temporarily return to Dubai in March 2025 before lifting his travel restrictions entirely later that year.

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Telegram is also facing fresh legal pressure in Australia, where regulators this week launched court proceedings alleging the platform failed to remove terrorism-related content.

Durov has cast himself as a defender of free speech and digital privacy. In April, he warned the European Union’s proposed age-verification app could pave the way for broader online surveillance. The same month, he blamed alleged tax data leaks for a wave of crypto-related kidnappings in France and said Telegram would leave the country rather than grant authorities access to users’ private messages.

Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

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FTX begins its fifth creditor distribution on Friday, moving roughly $900 million to holders of allowed claims. The round is the smallest of the five the estate has paid since repayments began.

The shrinking size points to a bankruptcy in its closing phase. The harder problem now is not raising cash but reaching creditors who have never collected.

FTX Fifth Distribution Is the Smallest of Five Rounds

FTX moved more than $5 billion in its second distribution in May 2025, then about $1.6 billion that September. The fourth creditor distribution round came to roughly $2.2 billion in March 2026.

Friday’s payment is under half that. Allowed Class 5A Dotcom customer claims pick up another 9%, reaching 105% cumulatively, while Class 5B U.S. customer claims add 5% to reach the same level. General unsecured and digital asset loan claims each gain 3%, taking both to 103%.

Convenience class holders sit at a 120% cumulative recovery, though FTX cautioned that final percentages may shift slightly on rounding. Those figures count dollars, not coins, and the real value of repayments has trailed what the same assets would fetch today.

A separate $18 million payment goes to preferred equity holders on the same date, lifting that trust’s running total to $95 million.

Some Creditors Still Cannot Be Paid

Claims that are not yet allowed stay marked as disputed. FTX lists three common reasons, including:

• Proofs of claim still under reconciliation
• Jurisdictions still under review, and
• Customers who took partial payments through the Australian proceedings.

The Bahamas track runs on its own terms. Joint official liquidators of FTX Digital Markets set the same June 16 record date and July 31 start, but the distribution rate is still to be confirmed.

Creditors living in jurisdictions the liquidators flag as potentially restricted stay excluded while the legality of paying them is reviewed.

For everyone else, Friday starts a countdown. Holders of allowed claims who have not onboarded with BitGo, Kraken or Payoneer within six months may forfeit the right to be paid at all.

Tax forms carry a separate deadline under the plan with the same consequence. FTX said the class-by-class totals will reach the court docket shortly after July 31.

The post FTX Fifth Distribution Is Its Smallest Yet: Who Still Cannot Get Paid? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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