Despite mainstream media coverage of crypto becoming more negative in recent years, a report found that in 2025, legacy media's coverage of bitcoin became more balanced, with neutral reporting outweighing negative stories.

According to an aggregate of sentiment data compiled by crypto intelligence platform Perception, the shift was less about enthusiasm for bitcoin and more about the exhaustion of earlier critiques.

Perception’s analysis, which tracked around 350,000 mentions across 407 outlets, suggests that environmental concerns, which once dominated mainstream coverage, faded in 2025, replaced by episodic reporting on crime, kidnappings, and illicit use.

While those stories skew negative in isolation, they no longer framed bitcoin itself as structurally harmful, resulting in a net tone that was more neutral than adversarial.

For the first time, BTC's biggest media moments were not framed around whether bitcoin is dead, the data shows. They were about how permanent bitcoin has become, and whether its infrastructure can scale and adapt to that permanence.

However, this change in narrative didn't occur overnight; rather, it unfolded in distinct phases throughout the year, according to Perception's data.

January marked a regulatory regime change, as the departure of SEC Chair Gary Gensler closed out years of enforcement-led uncertainty. This led to many enforcement cases being dismissed by the agency, such as the ones against Binance and Coinbase.

In March, policy legitimization followed with the issuance of an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. While the industry is still awaiting an official outcome of the executive order, this has shifted the media coverage from speculative debate to state-level budget implications.

Then came October, which delivered price validation as bitcoin set a new high before correcting, reinforcing its status as a mature, volatile asset rather than a fragile experiment.

By year's end, attention had shifted to technical questions surrounding long-term cryptographic foundations, particularly after advances in quantum computing reignited discussions about future-proofing the Bitcoin blockchain.

So, where is media attention heading next after coverage settled into a more neutral, normalized posture in 2025?

Unsurprisingly, its artificial intelligence (AI) emerged as the dominant attention driver across mainstream and digital channels, according to Perception's data.

AI, as a topic, generated significantly higher discussion volume and sharper sentiment swings, with controversy outpacing bitcoin even as mining-related coverage, which was previously getting mostly negative coverage, skewed to more positive, Perception said.

It seems that, in the eyes of the mainstream media, bitcoin looks less like today's disruptive threat and more like yesterday’s, as AI inherits the volatility of attention that once defined crypto coverage.

With crypto prices largely rangebound, only time will tell what catalyst will shift coverage back into crypto. However, for now, it seems AI will dominate the 2026 media narrative, whether positive or negative.

Market Movement

BTC: Bitcoin is holding above $92,000 as ETF inflows re-emerge and liquidations stay contained, pointing to institutional support underneath the market rather than a momentum-driven breakout.

ETH: Ethereum is edging higher near $3,160, with modest gains and contained liquidations pointing to steady accumulation rather than a speculative push.

Gold: Gold is trading at $4,392.93, holding its broader uptrend as Venezuela-driven geopolitical risk and upcoming U.S. jobs data keep safe-haven demand and Fed rate-cut expectations in focus despite a recent margin-triggered selloff.

Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.26% in its first trading session of 2026, leading gains across Asia-Pacific markets after the U.S. said it had captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, while oil prices edged lower amid geopolitical uncertainty.

Elsewhere in Crypto

• Bitfinex hacker Ilya Lichtenstein credits Trump’s First Step Act for early prison release (CoinDesk)
• SEC’s sole Democratic Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw departs agency, leaving all-Republican panel (The Block)
• All of Trump’s Pardons of Prominent Crypto Figures—So Far (Decrypt)