"Alchemist" who earned 200%: what we know about the 33-year-old author of the Citrini report on AI

James van Geelen, founder of the analytical company Citrini Research, unexpectedly triggered one of the most remarkable stock market crashes in recent times. The publication of the Citrini report on a dystopian future with artificial intelligence caused confusion on Wall Street, although it was originally conceived with good intentions, writes Bloomberg. How did the situation develop and what is known about the person who launched it?

James van Geelen did not initially plan to build a career in finance. In his student years, he wanted to become a doctor, but was unable to enter a specialized medical school, Bloomberg reports. Instead, he founded an alternative medicine startup, which he successfully sold to a private equity fund in 2018. The proceeds became his seed money to start investing and writing research papers.

Widespread fame came to the analyst in late 2022, when he publicly announced that he had opened a short position in Silicon Valley Bank shares. Just a few months later, the lending institution collapsed. On the heels of this success, van Geelen launched paid access to Citrini research on Substack in 2023, quickly making the project one of the most popular on the platform and amassing an audience of more than 119,000 subscribers.

The name Citrini comes from the word "citrinitas," a term from alchemy referring to one of the four stages of obtaining the philosopher's stone, R360 founder Charlie Garcia wrote in a blog for MarketWatch. George Soros' book "The Alchemy of Finance" was the inspiration.

Citrini now has about 10 employees on its team, and its research interests range from modern warfare and humanoid robots to obesity drugs and broader macroeconomic trends. Citrini claimed that its portfolio has grown by more than 200% since Ma 2023.

On Sunday, February 22, Citrini Research published an essay titled "The Global Intelligence Crisis of 2028" describing a hypothetical economic collapse. According to this scenario, the widespread adoption of AI in business processes would lead to mass layoffs of white-collar workers and trigger a deflationary cascade that would raise unemployment above 10% and crash the stock market.

By Monday morning, the post had become a major talking point, triggering a massive sell-off as trading opened. The S&P 500 index quickly went into negative territory and closed the day down more than 1%. The banking sector experienced its worst session since April 2025, and quotes of software developers collapsed by more than 4%.

The market reaction took van Geelen by surprise. Speaking to Bloomberg, he admitted, "If I had known that stocks would react to this report, I wouldn't have made it free." He said the dystopia described was a trigger for investors who were already tense over geopolitics, duties and the "software apocalypse."

"The market is clearly concerned about this. The article was clearly a starting point for investors who were already worried about the secondary impact of AI on existing companies, and that anxiety reached a climax when our essay pointed to a worst-case scenario," van Geelen said.

As the founder of Citrini himself admits, its own benchmark portfolio is not at all designed for the financial crisis. Van Geelen notes that his company has been criticized for being too bullish. The portfolio now includes AI-related positions such as Nvidia, Alphabet, Macronix and Mediatek - stocks of technology giants and semiconductor manufacturers.

In addition, Citrini Research did not open short positions against corporate platform ServiceNow, delivery service DoorDash and payment processor American Express - these companies were mentioned in the report and collapsed after its publication.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor