Market intelligence firm Bitcoin Perception reported that mainstream media coverage of Bitcoin in Q2 2025 remained deeply polarized. A total of 1,116 articles were published across 18 major outlets, which demonstrated 31% positive, 41% neutral, and 28% negative sentiment.
The firm highlighted a striking lack of coverage from elite financial publications, with The Wall Street Journal publishing just two Bitcoin articles, the Financial Times 11, and The New York Times 11. This is despite the fact that Bitcoin emerged as the best-performing asset of the past decade and saw billions added to corporate treasuries alongside record ETF volumes.
Filling The Gap
The report revealed that high-volume financial media such as Forbes, CNBC, and Barron’s provided extensive coverage and created a visible gap in narratives. Forbes, for instance, published 194 articles with 43% positive sentiment, particularly on retail and institutional adoption, with Bitcoin-related mining stories receiving 71.4% positive sentiment.
CNBC published 141 articles with 42% positive sentiment, and highlighted Bitcoin’s role in banking, finance, and investment vehicles. Bitcoin Perception describes this coverage to be aligned with market developments rather than “institutional orthodoxy.”
Meanwhile, Fortune published 117 articles with a balanced sentiment of 25% positive and 18% negative, and has maintained skepticism while covering Bitcoin’s growing role in the market.
Barron’s published 65 articles with sentiment nearly split at 25% positive and 27% negative, showing a notable difference from its parent WSJ’s low volume.
On the other hand, traditional news outlets such as The Independent and Fox News published 45 and 32 Bitcoin articles, respectively, maintaining a predominantly negative stance while still acknowledging Bitcoin’s relevance. The Independent recorded 42% negative sentiment, especially within crime, legal, and cybersecurity reporting, while Fox News maintained a conflicted narrative with 38% negative sentiment across similar topics.
Ostrich Strategy
Bitcoin Perception argued that the limited coverage from elite financial media reflects institutional reluctance rather than Bitcoin’s legitimacy issues, and framed this as an “ostrich strategy” that creates information asymmetry for institutional investors depending on these outlets for market intelligence.
The report states that while the WSJ and FT provided minimal coverage of Bitcoin, other outlets documented significant developments in the digital asset economy. In the process, these outlets effectively replaced traditional financial media in informing investors about a key asset class.
The disparity in coverage and sentiment, according to the report, indicates that as Bitcoin continues to outperform traditional assets, the “willful blindness” of elite financial publications contrasts sharply with the constructive, high-volume reporting from outlets like Forbes and CNBC, presenting both risks and opportunities for institutional positioning in the digital asset market.
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