The once-unthinkable handshake between Wall Street and crypto is now the defining story of the market. Mastercard is plugging into blockchain networks. BlackRock is buying Bitcoin by the bucketload. A wave of crypto-powered neobanks is launching, promising to bridge the gap.
Gone are the days when crypto PR was just about hyping a coin on Reddit and begging for a mention in a niche blog. TradFi PR wasn’t exactly thrilling either, built on dry earnings reports and carefully lawyered statements that said nothing.
There’s no denying the upside. A few years ago, getting Bloomberg to cover your crypto exchange was like pulling teeth. Now, because of BlackRock and friends, we can pitch Fidelity on BTC and actually get a meeting. The emails get opened. The calls get taken. We’re not crazy outsiders anymore, as we’ve become an essential part of a trillion-dollar asset industry.
However, this legitimacy came with a hidden cost: It didn’t simplify the story but made it infinitely more complicated and elaborate.
Two Tribes, One Big Problem
Before 2018, staying informed meant relying on a very short list. Outlets, like Bitcoin Magazine, founded in 2012, and CoinDesk, launched in 2013, were pioneers, providing news to a small but growing audience. The Web3 community was tight-knit, the focus was narrow and mainstream financial media largely viewed it as a curiosity.
The dynamic back then was that these two worlds – let’s call them the “suits” and the “hoodies” – spoke completely different languages, and their PR teams were expected to act as translators.
The suits from TradFi operated on a different clock: Everything was slow, deliberate and vetted by five layers of compliance. A single press release could take two weeks to approve. Their goal was to say as little as possible, with zero risk.
The hoodies from Web3, meanwhile, moved at meme speed. They thrived on transparency – sometimes too much – constant community engagement and X (formerly, Twitter) threads that read like manifestos. For them, a slow response was a death sentence.
Try telling a TradFi CEO in 2019 that they needed to do an AMA on Discord… I’ve seen the look of sheer panic. Then try explaining to a crypto founder that their brilliant, detailed tweet about a new token had to be reviewed by legal counsel first. Cue the eye-rolls and muttering about “old-world thinking.”
Someone had to manage that divide. And I’ll be honest with you, it was every bit as painful as it sounds.
The Old Rules Are Out
Fast forward to 2025, and the ecosystem is almost unrecognizable. Once a niche corner of the internet is now a crowded field of publishers.
Back in 2021, there were roughly 31 established crypto news outlets publishing in multiple languages. By 2025, that figure has grown to about 50 active English-language media alone. If you factor in regional and non-English platforms, the overall number of crypto news publishers climbs even higher.
The role of crypto media has fundamentally shifted from just reporting price movements to wielding real influence over the markets it covers. It’s now dissecting SEC filings, reverse-engineering smart contracts and breaking stories that would make a legacy finance editor sweat. While traditional media scrambles to stay afloat, cutting staff, shuttering verticals and chasing clicks, crypto-native outlets are quietly building something sturdier.
They’ve sidestepped the ad-revenue doom loop and tapped into a readership that actually wants nuance, and, worth noting, Gen Z’s shift away from legacy platforms helped them. This contrast is hard to ignore.
The Art of Saying the Right Thing Twice
Wall Street’s crypto crush has thrown PR teams into the deep end. They’re now forced to bridge two wildly different worlds, and the old rules no longer apply. You can’t just pitch Bloomberg or script a TikTok – you have to do both, often at the same time.
The whiplash is constant. One hour, you’re prepping the CEO for a sober CNBC interview; the next, you’re coaching them for an X Spaces chat. You celebrate a front-page feature in the Financial Times, then immediately spend three hours managing a panic on Telegram over a 5% price dip.
For seasoned pros, this new dual-track reality is a logistical nightmare. But for those who pioneered Web3 comms, Wall Street’s arrival is a golden age of chaos and opportunity. The winners will be the PR teams that can merge these two cultures into something new, something that combines TradFi credibility with crypto community authenticity.