Original|Odaily Planet Daily(@OdailyChina)
Author|Wenser(@wenser2010 )
In this bull run of the U.S. stock market, apart from the "White-Haired Stock God" Serenity who is active in the public discourse as an individual, another independent research firm named Citrini has also garnered significant attention—consistently ranking first in the finance category on Substack, with nearly 250,000 subscribers.
In February of this year, Citrini's report "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" once triggered a "sell-off in U.S. software stocks" and intensified panic psychology around Silicon Valley's unemployment wave. In April, the "Strait of Hormuz Research Report" written on-site by Citrini analyst Analyst#3 sparked strong reactions from the public, peeling back the layers of mystery shrouding the reality of this critical conflict point with first-hand experiences. Most recently, Citrini's semiconductor analyst Jukan accurately highlighted the importance of the copper foil industry within the AI and semiconductor sectors, driving a new wave of investment enthusiasm.
Standing behind this research firm, however, is a founder without a formal finance background: James van Geelen. Holding a dual degree in Biology and Psychology from UCLA, he has worked as an EMT, founded a healthcare company, and entered the investment world mid-career, now referred to as the "Research God." This issue of Odaily Planet Daily will uncover James's legendary cross-industry journey.
Citrini Founder: A Narrative Master Under "Second-Order Thinking"
Mentioning Citrini, people in the crypto space might have first noticed this research account perhaps due to a post he made in May this year, just before Cerebras (CBRS) went public, mentioning "fund managers conducting price discovery in advance on Trade.xyz (on the Hyperliquid ecosystem)." This tweet was later reposted and confirmed by Trade.xyz founder Shokun.
Citrini: The "Traditional Financial Circle Whistleblower" for Hyperliquid and Trade.xyz
It's no exaggeration to say that as a research account that once published the hot topic "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis," Citrini's radiating influence on the traditional financial circle is evident.
Its high affirmation of the Hyperliquid ecosystem and Trade.xyz's role in pre-market stock pricing has also genuinely brought crypto market RWA platforms, pre-market stock contract platforms, and on-chain stock trading platforms into more people's view, to some extent fueling this year's "U.S. stock RWA asset frenzy."
In a sense, Citrini can be considered a bellwether sending "warning signals" to the traditional financial circle—using accurate information to warn traditional financial markets that previously unnoticed crypto players are setting their sights on the "big cake" of traditional finance like barbarians.
Behind Citrini is a founder who believes in "second-order thinking" and "long-termism"—James van Geelen.
Multiple Labels: Dual Degrees in Biology & Psychology, Medical Emergency Practitioner, "AI Panic Whistleblower"
Thirty-three-year-old James van Geelen (hereinafter referred to as Geelen) perhaps never imagined that a single "hot post about AI" could trigger the rapid evaporation of hundreds of billions of dollars in market value from the U.S. stock market; earlier, his professional resume wasn't even remotely related to AI.
Public information shows that Geelen graduated from the prestigious U.S. university UCLA, earning dual degrees in Biology and Psychology during his studies; he also worked as an Emergency Medical Technician and Paramedic in downtown Los Angeles. His elite education and medical emergency background forged his character—pursuing efficiency and excelling at planning. As he himself says, "If you don't have a plan, you're going to have a bad time." Additionally, he claims to be a "genius musician," though without any notable works to show for it.
According to Geelen's original plan, he should have become a doctor saving lives, but by a twist of fate, he instead embarked on an entrepreneurial path: first founding a healthcare company and selling it to a private equity fund, thereby successfully breaking free from the "prestigious school-job-professional manager" cycle; then founding the current Citrini.
Another noteworthy point, as he personally mentioned in a 2023 Odd Lots podcast, is that he also co-founded one of Connecticut's earliest medical marijuana dispensaries. From this perspective, he is far from the "proper doctor" perceived by ordinary people as following a set routine or even being stubborn.
In 2018, after securing some startup capital, Geelen began his personal investment career under the name Citrinitas Capital, capturing early opportunities in areas like AI (e.g., NVIDIA) and GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (e.g., Ozempic/Wegovy).
In 2023, Geelen formally founded Citrini Research, dedicated to "cross-asset, multi-dimensional thinking for investment analysis," providing in-depth reports on thematic stock investing and global macro trading. It rapidly grew to become a top creator in the finance field on the Substack platform. (Odaily Planet Daily Note: It operates on both individual and institutional subscription models.)
On May 31, 2023, the model investment portfolio Citrindex, based on personal research, was officially launched with an annual subscription fee of $1250. According to statistics, this investment portfolio has achieved cumulative returns exceeding 200%, often outperforming the S&P 500 on a monthly basis.
In March 2024, he boldly predicted Trump would win the election; in July 2025, amid the turmoil surrounding former Fed Chair Powell's departure, he loudly advised his over 50,000 subscribers to "buy two-year U.S. Treasuries and short ten-year U.S. Treasuries" to hedge policy risks.
In December 2025, according to PitchBook information, Citrini completed approximately $5.05 million in seed funding, with only about 10 employees, and the company remains privately held.
Then, in February of this year, he co-authored with traditional finance veteran Alap Shah the report that shook the U.S. stock market: "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis." Although he repeatedly emphasized the report was merely a "thought experiment," a scenario assumption rather than predictive analysis, the phenomena it mentioned—such as "large-scale white-collar unemployment, declining consumer spending, economic contraction (Ghost GDP)"—still sparked panic and concern in the capital market, leading to sharp declines in delivery, payment, and software stocks. Among them, IBM's stock price on February 23 recorded its largest single-day drop since 2025; American Express and Blackstone Group both fell over 8%, the entire software stock sector dropped nearly 5%, and stocks like DoorDash, Uber, Mastercard, Visa, Capital One, and Apollo Global Management Inc. once fell by 3%. Multiple U.S. stock sectors were swept into the selling wave, with the Dow Jones index at one point falling over 800 points. Alap Shah later publicly stated that his investment stance was "talking bearish but going long," meaning shorting companies they believed would be disrupted by AI while holding semiconductor tech stocks benefiting from AI.
It's no exaggeration to say that Citrini's one report directly caused the U.S. stock market to "bleed profusely" at one point, evaporating hundreds of billions of dollars in market value overnight, prompting follow-up reports from overseas media like Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
On April 6 this year, Citrini team "Analyst #3" (code name Analyst#3) personally went to the critical flashpoint in the U.S.-Iran conflict—the Strait of Hormuz—for research, disclosing many little-known first-hand observations. They revealed the specific operational mode of Iran's "toll station" set up in the strait and presented a series of counter-intuitive conclusions, such as: Regardless of how the situation develops, shipping volume through the strait will gradually increase; Iran does not wish to close the Strait of Hormuz. First, strait shipping volume will continue to rise. Second, a diplomatic-style "toll station," surprisingly, the passage order in the strait is actually very regulated. Third, the paradoxical nature of escalation; even if ground operations commence, shipping volume through the strait may still continue to increase. Fourth, a restructuring of the landscape, not a winner-takes-all showdown. This conflict is not a simple "two-sided confrontation" but a multi-party game. Geographical disputes within great power competition are also key subjects within Citrini's "research range."
When asked why he named the company "citrinitas," Geelen replied: "The naming inspiration comes from the financial titan George Soros's book 'The Alchemy of Finance.' This is actually a stage in alchemy, but what most people don't know is that in this transitional stage, lead begins to transform into gold but hasn't completely become gold yet." This is also his favorite time to "make a difference"—seeing the birth of "gold" before others notice the change in lead.
Investment Style: Second-Order Thinking, Narrative-Driven, Reverse Scenario Analysis
As for Citrini's investment style, thanks to its cross-industry experience and multiple labels, it highly advocates "second-order thinking."
As Geelen himself says: "Most investors only focus on the ball itself, but I focus more on where the ball is going to bounce next."
Judging from Citrini's past content and public information, this research firm focuses on long-term "super trends," such as AI, robotics, energy demand, fiscal policy, geopolitics, modern warfare, etc. Additionally, the institution is committed to providing actionable "bundled investment references" and tactical macro trade ideas, with analysis leaning towards long-term structural changes rather than short-term trading. In its Substack homepage bio, we can see its emphasis on practicality, stating: "You (the reader) won't have to ask 'what's the trade?' anymore."
Furthermore, Citrini often uses "scenario assumptions" to help readers understand second-/third-order effects. Geelen once mentioned: "Don't just think about what you think will happen. Instead, think about things that are bound to happen. How will the market's reaction change the reality? What secondary effects will there be? What are the obstacles to keeping a certain trend going? And where will capital flow to overcome these obstacles?" Previously, he boldly bought overnight funding rate call options during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023, easily reaping nearly 50x returns; last December, before the U.S. launched military action in Venezuela, he shared insights on investment opportunities in Venezuelan sovereign bonds.
This year, Citrini has successively absorbed several independent analysts, including macro analyst Nick Reece, South Korean semiconductor industry analyst @jukan05, and AI chip industry analyst @zephyr_z9, to some extent filling gaps in understanding industry details, technical processes, and sector trend changes.Currently, the research institution still maintains a founder-driven + anonymous elite team collaboration production model.
