Odds on Open Quant Trader and Kinetic Founder: Trading the Market is Like Playing Poker
14 snips
Aug 5, 2025 Grant Stenger, the founder of Kinetic and a former intern at Jane Street, dives into the similarities between trading and poker. With a passion for games and mathematical edge, he shares insights from his experiences at QuantRes and Numerai, emphasizing decision-making under uncertainty. He explains how decentralized exchanges operate and the advantages of trading on Solana over Ethereum. Grant also reflects on the collapse of FTX, discussing the importance of being early in emerging asset classes and the parallels between gambling strategies and market trading.
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Figgy Teaches Market Making
- At Jane Street interns play Figgy, a market-making game modeled on open outcry to teach quoting spreads.
- Grant credits the internship for teaching market vocabulary and live trading intuition.
Poker > Chess For Market Decisions
- Poker trains decision-making under incomplete information, closer to real-world markets than chess.
- Bluffing and probabilistic play are essential skills transferable to trading under uncertainty.
Specialize Early In A Growing Asset Class
- Pick an asset class early and build deep expertise while it matures.
- Grant chose crypto/Solana to ride the tokenization wave and capture long-term structural growth.
