Interview with the Founder of Selini Capital: From Poker Player to Trader, The Secret Behind 13 Consecutive Years of Doubling Every Year
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Interview with the Founder of Selini Capital: From Poker Player to Trader, The Secret Behind 13 Consecutive Years of Doubling Every Year
"For 13 years, Jordi, founder of Selini Capital, has nearly doubled his net worth almost every year."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: thiccy, Co-founder of Scimitar Capital
Translation: Felix, PANews (with edits)
Jordi is a true master of games. He competed in chess and bridge tournaments during his youth, frequently winning medals, and in 2024 added a World Series of Poker bracelet to his achievements. Additionally, Jordi is the founder of Selini Capital, a cryptocurrency trading firm focused on market-making, discretionary long-short trading, and venture investing. Over the past 13 years, he has achieved an extraordinary 100% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), effectively doubling his net worth every year. Below are highlights from a Twitter Spaces interview.
When did you start taking poker seriously?
I started taking poker seriously in 2003 while still in college. That was the peak Moneymaker era—when he had just won the World Series and it became wildly popular. Poker was one of the few areas where a group of smart young people could make serious money—it was like a hot ball of cash. Now it's cryptocurrency.
How much money did you earn playing poker in college?
I'd say enough to cover tuition and live a comfortable student life—maybe around $50,000 per year. Doesn't sound like much now, but back then it was significant. I majored in economics, which isn't as rigorous as computer science or pure math. Economics felt somewhat loose, but I did take many courses specifically focused on game theory and even wrote a thesis on it. I also studied psychology. I never wanted to be a pure mathematician. I enjoyed the social aspects of life. So I pursued a double major in psychology and economics.
After graduation, I didn't plan to become a professional poker player. It was just something I did part-time during school. So I moved to New York in 2007 and landed a job at a large bank doing very boring work—mostly paperwork and some asset management tasks. I stayed there about nine months when the 2008 financial crisis hit. I sometimes played poker on weekends. At that point, I decided instead of waiting for the financial crisis to resolve, I’d take control myself. I actually wanted to become a full-time poker player.
What was your biggest self-discovery during that period?
On one hand, I built confidence knowing I could compete with the best players and hold my own. Facing off against Scott Seiver and other top players, I wasn’t getting crushed. But on the other hand, I saw my lack of emotional resilience. I'm not someone who easily tilts, but I needed to learn how to handle volatility and stay calm. Imagine if your livelihood depends on winning, and your first month is a terrible losing month—and you have no savings. The pressure is immense. You start confronting your darkest fears.
Now I notice many excellent traders played poker before getting into crypto trading. They learned how to avoid emotional decision-making through poker. I've seen people who had an edge, made a small mistake, got emotional, amplified it into a bigger mistake, and before they knew it, lost 50% of their capital due to emotional trading.
When did you first get involved with cryptocurrency?
I became familiar with crypto because my company was in the Bay Area—a very unusual place. In 2016, it was literally the only place in the world where you could walk into a café and casually overhear people talking about cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was around $1,000 then. I remember thinking it was expensive, so I bought some Ethereum because it seemed cheap, and made my first crypto trade. I realized Litecoin would explode since it was only a few dollars—I don't remember the exact price—but I noticed this normalization bias. So I bought a bunch of tokens like Litecoin and eventually sold them at $250 when things went crazy.
What were your initial thoughts when first encountering cryptocurrency?
Back in 2013, hearing news about Bitcoin, I thought the chance of it becoming foundational money was tiny—seemed far-fetched. So I didn’t buy any in 2013. At that time, I didn’t see Bitcoin as a store of value yet.
Your "generalist" trading style reflects your personality
My strength lies in intense curiosity—I don’t get bored easily. I can sit in front of a computer forever because there’s always so much to capture my attention. I actually have to force myself to exercise and do other things. Immersing myself in details, finding subtle nuances that others find dull—I find that extremely interesting.
Since 2022, the narrative comparing crypto to a casino has intensified. How do you integrate that into your long-term vision for crypto?
Given my background, most of my life has been spent in real casinos. I’ve been shaped by it, born into it. Personally, I’m perfectly comfortable with that. I do believe institutionalization will grow increasingly important over time, especially as the U.S. government starts holding Bitcoin. That’s totally fine. But I don’t mind being in the middle of it.
How do you see the crypto market evolving in the coming years?
The market needs new Ponzi schemes. For example, we haven’t seen an NFT cycle this round. Some tried, but failed. Then they tried meme coins, with narratives about higher liquidity. Maybe that works. But now it might not be working anymore.
Things will change—they won’t stay the same. It’s always evolving. I expect we’ll continue seeing more cycles involving gaming, but they’ll look different. Eventually, maybe we run out of new Ponzi schemes, but people are creative. I anticipate artificial intelligence will play a major role in crypto’s future. I’ve publicly said I’m very bullish on the convergence of crypto and AI. I think that’s where the trend is heading.
Many traders say AI will take over their jobs within a few years. Does that apply to your current work?
No, I believe the AI tsunami will eventually sweep everyone and everything. I do feel I’m riding near the peak of rising water levels, but it’ll take some time before the water reaches me. What I do isn’t based on data that’s easy to train or replicate—especially now, it’s more like combinations in the brain that generate alpha. Alpha isn’t necessarily about making trades; it’s about running businesses and creating value. I think my approach and knowledge are too specialized to be generalized through training. So personally, I’m not worried.
What was your worst trade ever?
My worst trade was shorting altcoins around late 2020. Altcoins had already gone up tenfold. Then you think, “This is pure garbage”—Cardano or Dogecoin, some of which I shorted. In traditional finance, at least some people care about fair value. People try to trade around fair value. But with these altcoins, I had to painfully learn there is no fair value—only pure greed, and greed far beyond what I imagined. I came in with the expectation that once a token goes up three times, players would exit and trigger some selling. But here, players were much greedier. I shorted Dogecoin several times, dropping from one and a half cents to one cent or half a cent. Then one day, Musk announced he’d adopt Dogecoin. When it surged to ten cents, I suffered massive losses. I made similar mistakes on Cardano multiple times.
That was a weakness for me, but now I’ve turned it into something manageable and actually profitable. But I’d say shorting altcoins was my biggest flaw for years—yet today, it’s become one of my most profitable trades. You really need to understand the game you're playing when shorting altcoins.
What advice would you give others to improve their trading skills?
It’s mostly internal psychology. This applies to many areas, but especially to traders. If ego clouds your judgment, things become harder. Almost everyone struggles with this. Many tie their identity and entire sense of self to certain beliefs. To become world-class in any field, you must keep your judgment completely unclouded. That usually means letting go of ego. For some, this takes years. For others, it comes easily.
How is your perspective on trading different?
For me, risk versus reward defines how I structure trades. Others differ—they just constantly hunt for alpha. In my mind, there’s always a probability distribution. As discussed recently, most of the time you have no position. You simply go to sleep, wake up refreshed, make some trades, and go back to sleep after. I maintain this rolling position distribution. Many assets don’t need any notion of fair value. Fair value basically means: within my trading timeframe, where does risk balance reward? That’s precisely where I don’t hold a position—because if risk and reward are balanced, there’s no edge. I have such risk-reward equilibrium points across various assets. When deviations begin, I start building positions, adding more until reaching my maximum size—the maximum depending on ensuring that even with catastrophic error, I won’t lose a large portion of capital. That’s how I calculate my sizing. Then I adjust around this risk-return framework.
Of course, the hard part is determining the risk-reward equilibrium. There are several ways to do this. Ultimately, you need to synthesize five to ten factors. You must consider cost bases of short-term and medium-term buyers. I used to be very good at this. When I did high-frequency trading, sitting at my desk all day with nothing else to do, just staring at charts, I became highly skilled at intraday trading. Within short periods, I could assess risk-reward for the next few minutes or hours and trade accordingly.
Also, something slightly unusual about my career: I’ve tried to cap my annual net worth growth. I aim to limit it to… at most 3x.
So what do you do with the leftover money? Donate it or…?
I spend time training myself. Imagine you’re a poker player who earns $100K one year, then $2.5 million the next. For the rest of that second year, you stop playing and enter learning mode—you’re laying the foundation for the next leap forward. You focus all your time and energy on that, rather than trying to earn even more money that year. I’ve done this since starting my trading career—now for 13 years. My goal has always been to double my earnings each year. I’ve stuck to it. So for 13 years, it’s been 2x every year.
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