Author: thiccy, Co-founder of Scimitar Capital

Compiled by: Felix, PANews (this article has been edited)

Jordi is a true gaming master. In his youth, he participated in international chess and bridge competitions, often winning medals, and in 2024 he also won a bracelet at the World Series of Poker. In addition, Jordi is the founder of Selini Capital, a cryptocurrency trading company that focuses on market making, proprietary long-short trading, and venture capital. Over the past 13 years, it has achieved an astonishing 100% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with his net worth actually doubling every year. The following is an excerpt from a Twitter spaces interview.

When did you start taking poker seriously?

I started taking poker seriously in 2003, when I was still in college. That was the peak period of Moneymaker (a legendary American poker player). He had just won the World Series, and he was all the rage. Poker was one of the areas where smart young people could make a lot of money, just like a money ball. Now it's Altcoins.

How much money did you make playing poker in college?

I would say enough to pay for tuition and live a comfortable student life. Maybe $50,000 a year. Now it doesn't sound like much, but at the time it was a significant amount. I majored in economics, which is not as hard-core as computer science or pure math. Economics is a bit loose, but I did take a lot of specialized courses on game theory and wrote a thesis on it. I also studied psychology. I never wanted to be a pure mathematician. I like the social aspects of life. So I chose a double major in psychology and economics.

After graduation, I didn't plan to become a professional poker player. It was just a part-time job during my studies. So I moved to New York, that was in 2007. I found a job at a big bank, doing some very boring work, mostly administrative and some asset management work. I did that for about nine months, and then the 2008 financial crisis hit. I would sometimes play poker on weekends. At that time, I decided that instead of waiting for the financial crisis to resolve, I might as well take matters into my own hands. I was more inclined to become a professional poker player at that point.

What was your biggest realization during that period?

On the one hand, I built confidence, believing that I could hold my own against the best players. When I played against Scott Seiver and the best players at the time, I wasn't defeated. But on the other hand, I saw my lack of emotional resilience. I'm not an emotionally volatile person, but I needed to learn how to deal with volatility and stay calm. You can imagine, if your livelihood depends on your wins, and you have a bad month to start, and you have no savings, the pressure is immense. You start facing your darkest fears.

I've noticed that many great traders have played poker before trading Altcoins. They were able to overcome emotional dysregulation in poker. I've seen some people who had an edge, but a small mistake made them emotional, and they escalated it into a bigger mistake. Before they realized it, they had lost 50% of their capital due to emotional trading.

When did you start getting into cryptocurrencies?

I started getting familiar with crypto technology because the company was in the Bay Area, which was a very unusual place, the only place in the world in 2016 where you could casually chat in a coffee shop and hear people talking about cryptocurrencies. I think Bitcoin was around $1,000 at the time, and I remember thinking it was too expensive, so I bought some Ethereum because it looked cheap, and then I made my first cryptocurrency trade. I realized Litecoin would skyrocket because it was only a few dollars. I don't remember what it was, but I realized this heuristic bias. So I bought a bunch of tokens like Litecoin, and eventually sold them at $250 when it went crazy.

What were your thoughts when you first encountered cryptocurrencies?

In 2013, when I heard the news about Bitcoin, I thought the chances of it becoming a base currency were slim, it seemed very far-fetched. So I didn't buy in 2013, I didn't see Bitcoin as a store of value at the time.

Your "multi-talented" trading style reflects your personality

My advantage is that I'm very curious and never get bored. I can sit in front of a computer forever, and there are too many things to capture my attention. I have to force myself to exercise and get things done. Immersing myself in things, finding the subtle details that others find boring, I find it very interesting.

Since 2022, the casino narrative around cryptocurrencies has been escalating. How do you incorporate that into your long-term vision for cryptocurrencies?

Given my background, I've spent most of my life in real casinos. I was shaped by it, born into it. Personally, I'm quite comfortable with it. I do believe that in the future, as the US government holds Bitcoin, the importance of institutionalization will become greater. That's fine with me. But I don't mind being in the midst of it.

How do you see the development of the crypto market in the next few years?

The market needs new Ponzi schemes. For example, this cycle didn't see an NFT cycle. Players have tried, but it didn't work. Then they tried meme coins, because there was some story about how they could be more liquid. So maybe that will work. But it probably won't work now.

Some things will change, it won't be the same as before, it's always evolving. I think we'll continue to see more gaming cycles, but it will be different. Maybe at some point, we won't have new Ponzi schemes, but people are very creative in this regard. I expect Artificial Intelligence to play an important role in the future of cryptocurrencies. I've always publicly stated that I'm very bullish on the convergence of cryptocurrencies and AI. I think that's the future trend.

Many traders say that AI will take over their jobs in a few years. Do you think this applies to your current job?

No, I think the AI tsunami will eventually sweep over everyone, sweep over the whole world. I do feel like I'm on a peak that's rising, but it will take some time for the water level to reach me. The data I use is not the kind that is easy to train and replicate, especially now, it's more like combinations that can generate alpha in my brain. Alpha is not necessarily about trading, but about running a business and adding value. I feel my approach and knowledge is very specialized, not something that can be universally trained. So I'm not personally worried.

What was the worst trade you've ever made?

The worst trade was shorting Altcoins at the end of 2020. By then, Altcoins had already gone up 10 times. Then you think it's just pure shit, Cardano or Dogecoin, some of which I shorted. In Tradfi, at least some people care about fair value. People try to trade around this fair value. But for these Altcoins, I guess I had to learn the hard way that there is no fair value, just pure greed, and the level of greed far exceeded my imagination. I did have the expectation that if a token went up 3 times, the players would exit, and then there would be some selling. But the players here are more greedy. I shorted Dogecoin a few times, from 1.5 cents down to 1 cent or 0.5 cents. Then one day, Musk announced that he decided to adopt Dogecoin. When it spiked to 10 cents, I suffered huge losses. I made the same mistake multiple times on Cardano.

This is a weakness for me, but now I have turned it into something that I can manage and actually be profitable. But I want to say that short-selling Altcoins has been one of my biggest flaws for many years, but now it is one of my most profitable trades. You really have to understand the game you're playing when you're short-selling Altcoins.

How would you advise others to improve their trading skills?

This is just psychology within. Many things are like this, but even more so for traders. If you get clouded in your judgment because of arrogance, then it will only get harder. Almost everyone is like this. Many people will tie their identity and their whole self to certain aspects. To become a world-class expert in something, you have to make your judgment unaffected by anything. This usually means letting go of the ego. I think for some people it takes years. For some, it's easy.

How do you think your perspective on trading is different?

For me, risk and reward is how I construct my trades. Other people have different ways, they're just constantly finding alpha. I always have a probability distribution in my head. We talked about this the other day, you're mostly flat. You just go to sleep, you want to wake up fresh and do some trades, and then go back to sleep when the trading is done. I have this rolling position distribution. Many assets don't need to have any fair value. Fair value basically means, where is the risk and reward balanced in the time frame that I'm trading? That's the no-position position, because if the risk and reward are balanced, there's no edge. I have risk-reward balance points for all these different assets. When it starts to deviate from that balance point, I start adding, adding, adding, until I get to my max position, and my max position is determined by how much I can lose if there's a catastrophic mistake and still not lose a huge proportion of my assets. So I calculate my sizing that way. And then I adjust around that risk-reward.

Of course, the hard part is determining where that risk-reward balance point is. There are a few ways to do that. At the end of the day, you have to aggregate five to ten things. You have to consider the cost basis of short-term, medium-term buyers. I used to be really good at this. When I was doing high-frequency trading, I'd sit at my desk all day with nothing else to do but stare at charts. I became very good at day trading. In a very short period of time, I can look at the risk-reward for the next few minutes or hours and trade around that.

Also, it's a bit strange in my career, I try to limit my net worth growth per year. I try to cap it at... no more than 3x.

So how do you handle the remaining money? Donate it or?

I spend time training myself. Imagine you're a poker player, you make $100k a year. Then the next year you make $2.5 million, and for the rest of that year you don't play, you go into learning mode, you're laying the groundwork for the next improvement. You focus all your time and energy on that, rather than making more money that year. I've been doing this since the start of my trading career, 13 years now. My goal is to 2x each year. I've stuck to that goal. So it's been 2x for 13 years.