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Why This Fund Bet $4.5 Million on Riot Stock Amid a 30% One-Year Run

Motley Fool - Sat Dec 20, 2025

Key Points

On November 13, New York City-based Aurelius Capital Management disclosed a new position in Riot Platforms(NASDAQ:RIOT), acquiring 238,220 shares valued at approximately $4.5 million.

What Happened

Aurelius Capital Management established a new equity position in Riot Platforms(NASDAQ:RIOT), according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing released November 13. The fund reported ownership of 238,220 shares valued at $4.5 million based on September 30 quarter-end data. This entry marks Riot Platforms as one of the five largest holdings in Aurelius’s portfolio.

What Else to Know

The new position accounts for 8.2% of Aurelius’s 13F reportable assets under management.

Top holdings after filing:

  • NASDAQ:BITF: $19 million (34.4% of AUM)
  • NASDAQ:CORZ: $8.4 million (15.3% of AUM)
  • NASDAQ:CIFR: $6.3 million (11.4% of AUM)
  • NASDAQ:WULF: $5.1 million (9.3% of AUM)
  • NASDAQ:RIOT: $4.5 million (8.2% of AUM)

As of Friday, shares were priced at $14.50, up about 30% over the past year and well outperforming the S&P 500, which is up 16% in the same period.

Company Overview

MetricValue
Price (as of Friday)$14.50
Market capitalization$5.4 billion
Revenue (TTM)$637.2 million
Net income (TTM)$164 million

Company Snapshot

  • Riot Platforms provides Bitcoin mining services, engineering solutions, and manufactures power distribution equipment for large-scale commercial and governmental customers.
  • The company generates revenue primarily through its Bitcoin mining operations and the sale of custom electrical infrastructure products and services.
  • It targets institutional-scale Bitcoin miners, data centers, utilities, and industrial clients in the United States.

Riot Platforms is a U.S.-based Bitcoin mining company with operations in infrastructure engineering and power distribution solutions. It operates multiple large-scale mining facilities and provides services to institutional clients in the digital asset infrastructure sector.

Foolish Take

What matters here isn’t the trade itself, but the message it sends about where durable value may be forming inside the digital infrastructure stack. Riot has spent the past several years being priced more than 75% below its 2021 highs, but the latest data suggests a turnaround might be in sight.

In the third quarter, Riot posted record revenue of $180.2 million, more than doubling year over year, alongside $104.5 million in net income and $197.2 million in adjusted EBITDA. Importantly, those results weren’t driven solely by higher Bitcoin prices. The company is actively repositioning around large-scale data center development, including the initiation of 112 megawatts of core and shell capacity at its Corsicana campus. That shift expands Riot’s addressable market well beyond self-mining.

The balance sheet helps explain the confidence. Riot ended the quarter with $330.7 million in unrestricted cash, $170 million in working capital, and nearly 19,300 bitcoin worth roughly $2.2 billion at quarter end. Within this portfolio, the Riot position sits behind more speculative miners but ahead of smaller allocations -- suggesting targeted conviction rather than a broad crypto bet.

Glossary

13F: A quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by institutional investment managers disclosing their equity holdings.

Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or firm.

Alpha: A measure of an investment's performance relative to a benchmark, showing excess return or underperformance.

Total return: The investment's price change plus all dividends and distributions, assuming those payouts are reinvested.

Institutional-scale: Refers to products or services designed for large organizations, not individual investors.

Power distribution equipment: Hardware that manages and delivers electrical power to large facilities or industrial operations.

Quarter-end data: Financial or position information reported as of the last day of a fiscal quarter.

TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

Bitcoin mining: The process of validating Bitcoin transactions and earning new coins using specialized computing equipment.

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Jonathan Ponciano has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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