Bitcoin Breaks Records, Media Hits Snooze: What Are They Smoking? 🤨

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Mainstream coverage of Bitcoin in the second quarter resembled the after-dinner conversation at a declining public school: sparse, partisan, and far too self-important. So says the eagle-eyed market intelligence firm, Perception, who have—perhaps for lack of more amusing diversions—quantified the general ennui with digital assets. Yes, gentle reader, even as Bitcoin ascended to Olympian heights, journalists dwelled listlessly at base camp, counting teaspoons and arguing about the colour of the bunting.

In total, just 1,116 articles flopped off the presses of eighteen mass media organs—hardly enough to line the budgerigar’s cage. The narrative, Perception reports, is “deeply polarized”—which is rather like saying the Atlantic Ocean is “fairly damp.” Of this miserable clutch of articles, a heroic 31% mustered cheerful noises, 41% shrugged passive-aggressively, and 28% clung to negativity with the persistence of an unwelcome house guest.

And the grandees of elite financial publishing? Their output was about as substantial as the drinks menu at a Temperance Union meeting. The Wall Street Journal managed just two articles (possibly written on the back of an invoice), while The Financial Times and The New York Times cobbled together eleven between them—hardly the frenzy of ink one expects in an era of digital gold. All together, that lofty trio contributed a princely 2% of the total chatter on Bitcoin, possibly from a fainting couch while sipping weak tea.

Mass Media Stares Blankly at Bitcoin: Three Classic Poses

Perception, in a fit of taxonomic enthusiasm, detected three essential archetypes among Bitcoin chroniclers, not entirely unlike the Greek muses but perhaps less inspiring. These modes are: “enthusiastic adoption” (see: Forbes, CNBC, and those who enjoy talking loudly at cocktail parties), “willful blindness” (brought to you by The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, who presumably peer at Bitcoin through opera glasses from behind the velvet rope), and the ever-present “persistent skepticism,” beloved of legacy media with a penchant for seeing a bubble in every teapot.

Into the editorial gap left by the financial Brahmins, Forbes and CNBC barrelled in, pelting their readerships with Bitcoin updates the way rebellious schoolboys fling peas. Meanwhile, the old guard fixated on crime, scandal, and malfeasance with the glee of Victorian vicars scandalized by the price of gin. Perception describes it as “filling the vacuum”; others may call it competitive storytelling—or perhaps simply, “Tuesday.”

Crypto Coverage: A Buffet, But No One Reaches for the Same Dish

One cannot accuse all media outlets of monotony—disarray, yes, but not monotony. Forbes stuck valiantly to tales of retail and institutional adoption, and even found time to muse about Bitcoin mining, possibly between investment lunches. CNBC, deprived of fresh banking scandals, subordinated their pages to analysis on finance and investment, with barely a nod to actual coins.

Fortune gallivanted across mining, banking, and more market analysis, possibly in an attempt to corner the market on incomprehensible graphs. Fox News, never one to mince words, preferred to report on crime, law, and cybersecurity, no doubt dreaming of a day when a Bitcoin heist could knock a Florida man off the front page.

Investors: Enlightened or Just Wandering in the Fog? 🤔

Finally, the report delivers its damning verdict with all the subtlety of a butler announcing the port has turned. This lopsided media circus, they say, perpetuates “information asymmetry.” To translate: if you depend on the grandest names in financial media for market insight, you are apt to be as “systematically underinformed” as a guest at a cheese-rolling competition, blindfolded and facing the wrong hill.

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2025-07-09 07:19