GM,
Crypto media is shrinking and coverage is going-house
Asia’s conference season is here.
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📆 Events
🌐 Sibos - Crypto now makes up 1 in 10 exhibitors at the world’s biggest banking conference. Next year, Sibos is coming to Singapore
🗽 Canton’s private invite-only Summit is next week, IYKYK
Crypto hackathons are down 75% since their peak in 2022, per our data, while AI hackathons are at ATH. This one is using a child’s genome to find a diagnosis ❤️
Poll: Devcon and HK Fintech Week are the same week. Which are you attending?
Results will be shared in the next issue
Upcoming:
🇺🇸 Stablecon — 9-11 Sep, 21 side events
🇪🇸 European Blockchain Convention - 16-18 sep, 9 events
🗽 NYC Events — 1-30 Sep, 44 side events
🇺🇸 Sibos Miami - 28 Sep - 1 Oct, 6 side events
🇰🇷 Korea Blockchain Week — 30 Sep-1 Oct, 58 side events
🇸🇬 TOKEN2049 — 7-8 Oct, 122 side events
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Crypto absorbed its own press
With the increase in crypto media shutdowns and layoffs, reporters who used to cover the industry from outside are moving in-house - into protocols, exchanges, VCs, and research firms.
What happened
Publishers lost control of distribution. Google, X, and AI now sit between them and the reader
Video consumption is high across the board. Companies are hiring producers, creators, and editors instead.
The customer is now TradFi
TradFi builds conviction from institutional-grade research, not crypto journalism, which was built for retail CTOwned media is faster, more controllable, and closer to the transaction
What this looks like in practice
Fomo is building “one of the largest in-house media arms of any tech company”
Dune added institutional-grade reports and commissioned research to their stack
GSR hired The Block's Frank Chaparro and built The Crypto Tape show, The Desk, newsletters, and research
Franklin Templeton is showing TradFi can speak CT too. Rather than making crypto content more institutional, their portfolio managers ditched the corporate format for candid conversations, then turned them into short clips for socials - a clever workaround for a highly regulated institution.
Maybe this isn't a bear-market story
Maybe it's another sign of crypto growing up. Established tech companies have been doing this for years.
a16z runs several in-house channels: The a16z Show, Web3 with a16z Crypto and a New Media program that helps portfolio companies go direct to their audiences. They’re now hiring a social media lead for $199K–$232K to run all of it - someone who is "extremely online," not corporate
YC, Revolut or Stripe all run their own podcasts
And in TradFi:
Fidelity runs Answers. Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and others have built podcasts and content franchises that put institutional expertise directly in front of their audiences.
But owned media has one obvious caveat: A company that funds its own coverage has no incentive to run the story that hurts it.
The Takeaway
Owned media is becoming part of the product. It's faster than PR, more controllable than journalism, and closer to the transaction.
Assume the media you consume has a stakeholder. The loudest research, podcast, or “explainer” increasingly come from companies with something to sell.
Own your audience, but borrow third-party credibility when you need it.
Look serious where it counts. Ship data-backed briefs if you sell to institutions.
Worth keeping in mind, from Sam Altman: “No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.”
Job & Community Updates
From our private community
We’re hiring a Product Designer and Social Media Lead
Nick from Monad Foundation is hosting a summit during TOKEN2049 SG
Alex, co-founder of Lavarage, joined Solana Incubator in NYC
Ipshita, VP at Hype, shares her thoughts on event ROI
About Us
Mira is the discovery platform for digital finance and frontier tech - events, companies, jobs, and the people building it
We also run a private community for founders and builders
