A 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher founded the hedge fund Situational Awareness in 2024 with $100 million in initial fundraising. The fund rapidly expanded to roughly $30 billion before an urgent sale of about $20 billion in stocks over less than 30 hours cut it to around $8 billion, a single drawdown of more than 70%. The episode centers on a liquidity crunch at a newly launched AI-themed hedge fund and does not involve public-company earnings, regulatory actions, or macro policy shifts, with no direct price transmission to traditional financial assets.