INTERVIEW: VKTR
VKTR is a professional prop trader and frequent shitposter. He is currently building IDEX, a high-performance decentralized derivatives exchange, and Orion Terminal, a suite of trading tools.
“The seduction of thinking someone can mentor you into an effective trader or there's a win-all indicator out there is very powerful, but you need to avoid it at all costs.”
What’s romantic about blowing up accounts?
It's almost subconscious in a sense. If you have a lot of character traits that point to being impulsive and risky, you will seek that out. I have an affinity towards adrenaline and dopamine, and if you're self-aware and you know those things about yourself, you know that they're going to somehow manifest themselves in trading. One of the ways they manifest themselves, if you have the same personality type as me, is when you’re high-rolling. You’re not fully trading or gambling, either. It's still profitable, and it's still trading, but you’re somewhere between +EV gambling at the casino and actual trading.
You're in a sort of limbo where you're not getting the advantages of completely going YOLO balls to the wall, but you're also not getting the benefits of actually conservatively growing your capital. It's such a fun, dangerous and toxic limbo state to be in because you can stay there fucking forever – until you blow up.