Dialogue with the founder of Selini Capital: How did you double your annual income for 13 consecutive years?

Author: thiccy , Scimitar Capital

Compiled by: Felix, PANews (this article has been deleted and modified)

Jordi is a true gaming master. When he was young, he participated in chess and bridge competitions, often won medals, and in 2024 he won the World Poker Series bracelet. In addition, Jordi is also the founder of Selini Capital, a cryptocurrency trading company focused on market making, autonomous long-short trading and venture capital. Over the past 13 years, a staggering 100% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has actually doubled his net worth every year. Here are the highlights of Twitter spaces’ interview.

When did you start playing poker seriously?

I started playing poker seriously in 2003, and was still in college. It was the peak of Moneymaker, a poker legend in the United States. He just won the World Series and was all the rage. Poker is one of the areas where a group of smart young people can make a lot of money, like a hot ball of money. Now it's a cryptocurrency.

How much did you make in college playing poker?

I would like to say enough to pay for tuition and live a good student life. Maybe $50,000 a year. It doesn't sound like a lot now, but it was a considerable amount at that time. I majored in economics, and it is not a hard science like computers or pure mathematics. Economics is a bit loose, but I did take many courses that specialize in game theory and wrote a paper. I also studied psychology. I never wanted to be a pure mathematician. I love the social aspects of life. So I chose a double degree in psychology and economics.

After graduation, I didn't plan to play professional poker. This is just my part-time job during school. So I moved to New York, and that was 2007. I found a job at a big bank and did some very boring jobs, mainly paperwork and some asset management work. I did it for about nine months, and then the 2008 economic crisis broke out. I sometimes play poker on weekends. At that time, I decided that instead of waiting for the financial crisis to resolve it, I would rather solve the problem yourself. I wanted to be a professional poker player at that time.

What did you know the greatest thing about yourself during that time?

On the one hand, I have built up confidence and believe that I am fighting against the best players and can compete with them. He was not defeated when he was fighting Scott Seiver and the best players of the time. But on the other hand, I see myself lacking emotional recovery. I'm not a person who is emotionally out of control, but I need to learn how to deal with fluctuations and stay calm. You can imagine if your life depends on your victory and your beginning month was a bad month and you had no savings and the stress was very high. You begin to face your darkest fears.

I noticed that many good traders now have played poker before trading cryptocurrencies. They are able to get rid of emotional out of control in poker. I've seen some people who had an advantage but became emotional because of a small mistake and exacerbated it into a bigger mistake. Before they realized this, they had lost 50% of their money from emotional trading.

When will you start to get in touch with cryptocurrencies?

I started to get familiar with crypto because the company is in the Bay Area, which is a very unusual place, and the only place in the world in 2016 where I chatted casually in a coffee shop and heard people talking about cryptocurrencies. I think Bitcoin was about $1000 at that time, and I remember I thought it was expensive, so I bought some Ethereum because it looked cheap and then made my first cryptocurrency transaction. I realized Litecoin would skyrocket because it only has a few dollars. I don't remember what it is, but I realize this normal bias. So I bought a bunch of tokens like Litecoin and ended up selling it for $250 when it was crazy.

What was the idea when you first came into contact with cryptocurrencies?

When I heard news about Bitcoin in 2013, I felt that the chance of becoming a base currency was very small and seemed very far-fetched. So I didn’t buy it in 2013, and at that time I didn’t use Bitcoin as a store of value.

Your "all-round" trading style reflects your personality

My advantage is that I have a strong curiosity and don’t feel bored. I can sit in front of the computer forever, and there are so many things that can grab my attention. I have to force myself to exercise and do things. Immerse yourself in things and find subtle things that others are bored, and I find it very interesting.

Since 2022, the casino argument for cryptocurrencies has become increasingly fierce. How do you incorporate it into your long-term vision for cryptocurrencies?

Due to my background, I spent most of my life in real casinos. I was shaped by it and was born in it. Personally, I'm very satisfied with it. I do think that in the future, as the US government holds Bitcoin, the importance of institutionalization will become increasingly greater. This is absolutely fine. But I don't mind being in it.

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

The market needs a new Ponzi scheme. For example, this round does not see an NFT cycle. Some players tried it but failed. Then they tried meme coin because there were some stories about how it was more liquid. So maybe this works. But it may not work now.

Some things will change, not as they were before, it is always evolving. I think we will continue to see more game cycles, but things will be different. Maybe at some point, we don’t have a new Ponzi scheme, but people are very creative in this regard. Artificial intelligence is expected to play an important role in the future of cryptocurrencies. I have always publicly expressed my optimism about the integration of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. I think that's the future trend.

Many traders say AI will take over their jobs within a few years. Do you think this is suitable for your current job?

No, I think the tsunami of artificial intelligence will eventually sweep everyone and the whole world. I do feel like I'm at the peak of rising water levels, but it will take some time to wait for the water levels to rise to me. I'm not using data that is easy to train and replicate, especially now, it's more like a combination of alpha in the brain. alpha is not necessarily about conducting transactions, it is about running a business and adding value. I think my methods and knowledge are very professional and cannot be generalized. So I personally am not worried.

What was the worst deal you 've ever made?

The worst deal was shorting altcoins during this time in late 2020. Altcoins had risen 10 times by then. Then you think it's pure shit, Cardano or Dogecoin, some of which I shorted. In Tradfi, at least some people care about fair value. People are trying to trade around this fair value. But for these altcoins, I think I must realize through my painful experience that there is no fair value, pure greed, and the level of greed is far beyond my imagination. I did come in with such expectations, if a certain token goes up 3 times, the player will exit and then there will be some selling. But the players here are more greedy. I've shorted Dogecoin several times, falling from one cent and a half to one cent or a half cent. Then one day, Musk announced his decision to adopt Dogecoin. I suffered a very big loss when it soared to 10 cents. I have made this mistake several times on Cardano.

This is a weakness for me and now I have turned it into something manageable and actually profitable. But I would say that shorting altcoins is a big flaw in my years, but now it is one of the most profitable deals I have ever made. You have to really understand the games you play while shorting altcoins.

Would you advise others how to improve their trading ability?

This is just inner psychology. This is true for a lot of things, but even more so for traders. If you have a vague judgment because of your conceit, then you will be more and more difficult. Almost everyone is like this. Many people associate their identity and their entire self with certain aspects. To be a world-class expert in some respects, you must keep your judgment unaffected. This usually means letting go of oneself. I think it will take several years for some people. For some, it's easy.

How do you think you think of trading differently?

For me, risk and reward are the way I build my deals. Others have different ways, they just keep discovering alpha. There has always been a probability distribution in my mind. I also talked about this a few days ago, you don’t have a position most of the time. You just go to bed, you want to wake up in full spirit, make some trades, and then go back to bed when the trades are over. I have this kind of rolling position distribution. Many assets need not have any fair value. Fair value basically means where does risk and return balance within the time frame of my transaction? This is the position where you don't hold a position, because if the risk and return are balanced, there is no advantage. I have a risk-reward balance point for all these different assets. When I start to deviate from the equilibrium point, I will start to increase my position and keep increasing my position until I reach my maximum position, and my maximum position depends on the fact that there is a catastrophic error, and still won't lose a large proportion of the assets. So I calculate my scale this way. Then adjust around this risk reward.

Of course, the difficult part is determining the balance point of risk-reward. There are several ways to do this. At the end of the day, you have to put together five to ten things. You must consider the cost basis for short-term and medium-term buyers. I used to be very good at doing this. When I was in high frequency trading, I sat at my desk all day, and there was nothing else to do, just staring at the charts. I became very good at day trading. In a very short time, I can look at the risk rewards for the next few minutes or hours and trade around it.

Also, it’s a little weird in my career that I’m trying to limit my net worth growth every year. I'm trying to limit it to...up to 3 times.

So how do you deal with the remaining money? Donate it or?

I took the time to train myself. Imagine you are a poker player and you earn one hundred thousand a year. Then you earned 2.5 million in the second year, and you don’t play the rest of the year, but enter the learning mode, and you are laying the foundation for your next progress. Focus all your time and energy on this instead of making more money that year. I have been doing this since my trading career, and I have been doing it for 13 years. My goal is to make 2 times a year. I have always been sticking to this goal. So it has been twice as many as 13 years.