Riccardo Brüggmann

Why this persona fits the audience

Part of a 3-person crypto research pod in Berlin that monitors 600+ coins, major market caps, and a few exchange-specific opportunities every weekday. The team splits work between one person on news flow, one on on-chain data, and one on price alerts and execution checks; they currently use a mix of spreadsheets, charting tools, and exchange dashboards.

• Age: 34
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Occupation: Crypto research analyst
• Income: €78k-115k salary
• Education: Master's degree in Financial Technology (Fintech) from TU Munich
• Company size: 15 employees, niche Berlin-based crypto investment firm
• Years in role: 5

“I don't trust markets, I trust data. And even then, I sleep with one eye open.”

Riccardo Brüggmann grew up in Nuremberg watching his father, an insurance actuary, meticulously analyze risk tables. This early exposure to quantitative analysis planted the seed for his career, though he initially pursued a master's in financial technology at TU Munich with the vague ambition of working in fintech. An internship at a cryptocurrency hedge fund during his studies revealed his true calling—he was addicted to the information asymmetry of crypto markets. After graduation, he joined a Berlin-based boutique investment firm that was just expanding its crypto research team. Five years in, he's now the firm's on-chain analytics specialist, part of a three-person research pod that monitors 600+ cryptocurrencies daily. His mornings are spent parsing Glassnode and Dune Analytics reports, while afternoons are consumed by a torrent of price alerts and execution checks across multiple exchanges. The team's current workflow—spreadsheets, TradingView charts, and exchange dashboards—drives him crazy, but his colleagues resist change. He's pushed for a unified platform, even building a crude prototype himself, but budget constraints and institutional inertia have stalled adoption. Last quarter, his identification of an underfollowed exchange's liquidity surge led to a 37% outperformance on an altcoin position, earning him a £500 bonus and a week of smug satisfaction. Beyond work, Riccardo is a obsessive about Deutsche Bundesbahn history, collecting vintage timetables and posters. He's also painstakingly built a cold brew coffee routine that would make a barista weep. His social life revolves around crypto industry meetups and hikes with university friends. Financially, he's cautious—tracking every expense in a spreadsheet that syncs with his phone. His biggest frustration? When his team's scattered tools cause data inconsistencies that keep him up at night. His goal is to break into institutional crypto investing within three years, ideally while completing his collection of 1970s Deutsche Bahn timetables.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

5:45AM: Wake up to noise-canceling headphones playing Die Ärzte (loud). 6:00AM: 8km run along the canal, checking Bloomberg app at every red light. 6:45AM: Cold brew ritual (pre-ground beans, 16-hour steep in the fridge, metal filter). 7:30AM: Inbox triage - deletes all marketing emails, flags anything from CoinDesk or Glassnode. 8:00AM: Team standup (they're still arguing about whether Ethereum ETF news will matter). 8:30AM: Dive into on-chain data, building custom Dune queries to spot unusual whale movements. 11:00AM: Emergency falafel run (same order, always). 11:30AM: Puts all alerts on a 3-minute monitor setting to catch arbitrage opportunities. 2:00PM: Team meeting to reconcile their three different spreadsheets (again). 4:30PM: One final sweep of price alerts before he goes home and collapses on the couch. 5:30PM: If he's feeling social, he'll meet colleagues for a beer. Otherwise, he's back to his Deutsche Bundesbahn collection, charging his phone at 20% intervals to preserve battery health.

Lifestyle

Riccardo rents a 38m² studio in Neukölln, where his walls are covered with a mix of cryptographic diagrams and vintage Deutsche Bahn timetables from the 1970s. He wakes at 5:45am to jog along the Landwehr Canal, then spends 45 minutes making cold brew coffee with painstaking precision. Weekends are for long walks through Tiergarten (checking his phone every 10 minutes) or arguing with fellow crypto researchers at Café de France about whether altcoins actually have a future. He eats at the same falafel stand every Friday, always ordering the same thing. His biggest indulgence is a €40/month subscription to a digital archive of historic macroeconomic data. Social life is mostly industry meetups and hiking trips with his old university friends from TU Munich. His bank account is meticulously tracked in a spreadsheet that syncs with his phone.

Work life

Riccardo's team of three handles the firm's entire crypto research output. He's the on-chain specialist, spending mornings parsing Glassnode reports and building Dune Analytics dashboards. His afternoons are a frenzy of price alerts (set across six exchanges) and manual trades when execution discrepancies appear. The team uses a chaotic mix of tools: TradingView charts, Kraken/OKX dashboards, and 17 different spreadsheets that he's debated consolidating for years. His biggest frustration is when the news guy misses a critical press release or the execution guy fat-fingers an order. He's pushing the firm to adopt a single monitoring platform, but his colleagues resist change. Last quarter, his identification of an underfollowed exchange's liquidity surge led to a 37% outperformance on an altcoin position, which earned him a €500 bonus and a week of smugness.

Relationships

Riccardo's closest friends are his two colleagues at work, though they occasionally bicker about trading strategies. His older sister in Stuttgart pretends to understand what he does and sends him memes about the stock market. His parents, retired teachers from Nürnberg, occasionally check in with concerned questions about 'all the new money' and 'whether this is just tulip mania again.' He has a loose network of crypto researchers across Europe he meets at conferences, though the group chat is 90% memes and 10% useful information. His university mentor from TU Munich occasionally reaches out for freelance consulting, which he does reluctantly (mostly for the €).

How they decide

Methodically cautious in research, but quick to pull the trigger on trades once the data aligns. Prefers to validate his own conclusions through third-party sources before presenting to the team. Will delay a decision if he feels data quality is questionable. Hates gut-feel trading but respects seasoned traders who seem to have developed a 'nose' for the market.

How they sound

Speaks in rapid, precise sentences with frequent technical asides. Avoids jargon around non-crypto people but can't help himself when excited. Uses 'tbh' in emails more often than necessary. Has a habit of saying 'technically' when correcting someone. Pronounces 'blockchain' like a native English speaker but 'auf EOS' like a Berlin local. Uses 'weird' as his catchall term for market anomalies. Hates the phrase 'to the moon' with a passion.