I entered the crypto space working with Houbi (now HTX) in 2017, interviewing some of the earliest blockchain pioneers and made my first investment in Bitcoin, quickly realizing the potential to transform finance. In 2017, crypto reached its first real inflection point. Bitcoin hit a record high, the ICO boom flooded the market with whitepapers, and exchanges like Binance began shaping the market. Litecoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin were among the few widely known tokens. Inside the industry it felt like excitement and chaos; outside, it was largely misunderstood.
And yet, despite all the innovation and attention, one thing was missing: credible and structured public relations. Back then, “PR” in Web3 looked entirely different from what it has become today.
The Early Days: Community and Chaos
In the early years, if you wanted to promote your project, your options were limited. Most marketing and communications happened through exchange blogs, podcasts, or forums. Reddit and 4chan, for example, were one of the few platforms considered a hub for updates and community discussions. Vitalik Buterin wrote on his blog. Word of mouth and community events, sometimes with just a handful of attendees, were where reputations were built.
Organic PR was nearly impossible. Crypto’s legal gray zones kept mainstream outlets away, and journalists avoided risking credibility. Coverage that did appear rarely favored projects. For founders, visibility meant scrutiny, so anonymity became the norm. Instead of chasing press, projects built reputations in communities, Discord, Reddit, and small meetups where supporters engaged without unwanted attention.
Without paid media, community building was the only strategy. Early adopters became the marketing team, amplifying messages across Telegram and niche forums. This bottom-up approach became crypto’s first form of PR, showing that trust and advocacy began with the community long before mainstream media joined. This reliance on community wasn’t a weakness; it built loyal believers in technology. But it also left narratives fragmented, hype-driven, and often detached from reality.
The Shift: Regulation, Trust, and the Maturing Media
Fast forward seven years, and the industry could not be more different. The approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024, the rollout of licensing regimes across major financial centers, and the entry of global institutions have transformed crypto from a fringe experiment into a regulated asset class.
Take the U.S. for example, as of September 2025, the SEC approved generic listing standards for crypto ETFs, lowering approval timelines and paving the way for a surge of new ETF filings. Meanwhile in Europe, MiCA became fully applicable across the EU in January 2025, enabling licensed crypto firms to operate with legal certainty across member states.
With that, this shift has had a direct impact on PR and marketing. Journalists who once ignored crypto pitches now treat them with the same seriousness as pitches from traditional finance or technology firms, provided they carry real substance. We began to see serious signs of momentum in the media world: top publishers like Bloomberg, Forbes, and Fortune started expanding dedicated crypto teams.
In 2024, the number of crypto-themed articles in leading newspapers rose from around 1,002 in 2018 to 1,532 in 2021 – a 53% increase over just three years. This also meant the bar had begun to rise. A generic partnership announcement or token listing is not enough to earn media attention. What matters today is strategy, utility, and impact.
PR in the Web3 industry has matured from being about hype to being about trust. It’s not about quick wins or landing tier-1 coverage, but about long-term positioning, earning credibility with regulators, clarity with users, and confidence in investors. The question is less “How do we get noticed?” but rather, “How do we prove we belong here for the long term?”
One constant remains: community. In 2017, community was one of the only forms of PR. By 2025 it’s the backbone of adoption. The platforms have changed, from meetups and Telegram to Discord, X and TikTok, but authentic community-building still created loyalists no amount of paid marketing can buy.
Community today extends beyond users to include investors, policymakers, journalists, and thought leaders. PR’s role is bridging these groups to drive meaningful dialogue and trust.
The New Role of PR: Building Bridges in a Regulated World
The Web3 industry’s maturation has given PR a more strategic role than ever before. Today, success means building narratives that regulators respect, institutions trust, and audiences connect with.
Seven years ago, crypto PR meant convincing a skeptical public that the industry was even worth paying attention to. Today, it means proving legitimacy in a world where regulators, institutions, and mainstream audiences are finally watching closely.
The journey from roadshows to regulated markets shows how far we’ve come, but also something deeper: PR has always been about trust, stories that resonate, and communities that endure.
As the industry evolves, those principles remain. From 2017 to 2025, the fundamentals of decentralization, freedom, and sound money haven’t changed, nor has the conviction of believers. Credibility is still the most valuable currency, and as Michael Saylor said, “The bitcoin price is set by those with more money and less knowledge than you. In time, they will get the knowledge, and you will get the money.”