Q1 2025 opened with an unmistakable paradox, as public appetite for crypto surged across Western Europe. A joint study by Adan, Deloitte, and Ipsos painted a bullish picture: digital assets were becoming a household topic, decentralized finance use cases were gaining traction, and platforms like Revolut were onboarding new users at pace. Italy led with 37% of its population expressing interest in crypto, and even traditionally skeptical France saw a 10-point rise in purchase intent.
And yet, while the public leaned in, the media serving this growing audience was collapsing. According to new data from Outset PR, 82% of crypto-native publications across the region experienced a drop in visibility in Q1 2025. The report makes one thing clear: even as crypto draws more public attention, the media meant to cover that growth is slipping out of view — a pattern Outset PR first observed in its LATAM analysis.
Visual breakdown of crypto outlet traffic in Western Europe (Q1 2025): data sourced from Outset PR
Between Markets in Crypto-Assets’ (MiCA) compliance demands, Google’s March algorithm update, crypto market stagnation, and widespread reliance on thin, AI-generated content, crypto media across Western Europe found itself squeezed on all sides. The very platforms meant to inform and connect users were being penalized, restructured, or left behind.
At the center of the collapse sits the MiCA regulation, which began its soft rollout across the EU in January 2025. Though aimed at crypto service providers, MiCA’s reach extended deep into the media landscape. Outlets that featured sponsored content, token promotions, or loosely worded investment guidance — even if unintentionally — found themselves under regulatory scrutiny.
In parallel, Google’s March 2025 algorithm update penalized content that lacked depth, transparency, or editorial differentiation. Sites running undifferentiated AI content, regurgitated press releases, or recycled newswire stories were downgraded.
The result? A perfect storm that punished both the careless and the unlucky.
Take the Netherlands and Belgium, where no major domestic regulatory crackdowns occurred in Q1, yet the crypto media ecosystems still suffered steep declines. Why? SEO dependence. Dutch-language outlets, such as Bitcoin Magazine NL and Newsbit NL, relied heavily on search traffic. When Google's update began penalizing thin or unclear content, these sites lost visibility.
In Belgium, Dutch-speaking readers — mostly served by Netherlands-based platforms — were caught in the crossfire. Despite no MiCA clampdown from Belgian authorities, algorithmic ripple effects across language regions suppressed crypto coverage and discoverability. In short, even countries with lenient enforcement saw their ecosystems crumble under digital pressure.
But regulations and algorithms weren’t the only culprits. The crypto media sector entered 2025 already carrying significant baggage: editorial fatigue, oversaturation, and an identity crisis accelerated by the overuse of AI-generated content.
As user expectations matured, audiences sought insight, not redundancy. Instead, many outlets flooded the market with near-identical stories. Newswire-fed updates, clickbait token analyses, and templated articles made discoverability harder and diluted trust. Google, armed with machine learning classifiers tuned to detect "thin" content, began actively demoting these formats.
The editorial challenge became existential. What differentiated one outlet from another when they were all publishing the same headlines about Bitcoin ETF speculation or DeFi security breaches?
Outset PR’s analysis goes further, identifying a qualitative erosion in crypto journalism. The report cites growing compliance stress among editorial teams, who were suddenly forced to add disclaimers, vet partners, and reorient language — often without legal resources or precedent. For smaller independent publications, these added burdens became existential.
Outset PR’s Q1 2025 report offers a comprehensive explanation layer. Of the 133 Western European outlets tracked, only 18.39% saw any growth — and even that growth was mostly measured in percentages, not scale.
In fact, just 16 crypto-dedicated publications posted quarterly gains, and only Newsbit.de consistently exceeded 1M monthly visits. The rest operated in the sub-100K monthly range.
Traffic across the sector dropped from 26.57 million visits in January to 22.22 million by March — a 16.37% fall in just one quarter.
Visualization of changes in crypto outlet traffic in Western Europe (Q1 2025): data sourced from Outset PR
But it wasn’t just about numbers. The crisis had a qualitative dimension. Editors scrambled to understand shifting compliance standards. Previously viable traffic acquisition channels like Google Discover vanished for many. Only 22.99% of crypto-native outlets still had consistent Discover visibility. Brands built on visibility and reach now found themselves in the shadows.
In Germany, BaFin took a hardline stance, aggressively penalizing investment-style promotion without proper licensing. The German-language segment, representing the largest bloc of crypto-native outlets, was battered — over 60% of these publications lost traffic.
Even in markets with milder enforcement like France or the UK, the impact was visible. France saw a 72% drop among its crypto outlets, with many failing to adapt content to new transparency guidelines. The UK, outside MiCA’s direct jurisdiction, still felt the pressure through the FCA’s new promotion rules and Google’s AI-content purge.
Among the few winners were sites like The Market Periodical, Blockchain Stories DE, and ActuCrypto.info. These outlets embraced multilingual content, clarified editorial scope, and adopted MiCA-aligned formatting quickly. The Market Periodical, in particular, saw a 261% surge in Q1 — by expanding into new language markets.
The Dutch site Beste Bank posted 31% growth, and Spain’s Bit2Me News grew 149% — the latter due to a rare content pivot and deep local engagement strategy.
Still, almost all of these outlets remained small, serving more as proof of concept for adaptive publishing than as a solution to the wider industry collapse.
Outset PR’s findings show that general finance and tech outlets with crypto sections fared significantly better. Of 46 such platforms, 54% posted traffic growth. Unlike crypto-native sites, these publications had stronger domain authority, more editorial flexibility, and diversified content portfolios.
Finanzen.net, Investing.com (DE, FR, IT), and Boursier.com all maintained Discover visibility and robust growth, proving that when crypto media narrows its lens, broader players step in to fill the gap.
In total, non-crypto-native sites generated over 106 million visits in Q1 2025 — more than four times the reach of their crypto-dedicated counterparts.
The fragmentation of crypto-native outlets contrasts sharply with the growing consolidation among broader media. Just seven crypto-dedicated publications accounted for over 60% of the entire market’s visibility. The rest were scattered, with the majority operating under 100K visits per month.
Fragmentation of Western Europe’s crypto media landscape in Q1 2025, per Outset PR
In contrast, 19 finance-first platforms, each surpassing 1 million monthly visits, captured more than 95% of the total audience in this segment. The implication for crypto PR is clear: survival now depends on hybrid strategies that mix top-tier generalist partnerships with highly targeted, compliant crypto-native campaigns.
For crypto brands, protocols, and investors hoping to build traction in Western Europe, the lessons of Q1 2025 are sobering — but actionable.
Editorial compliance is non-negotiable. Outlets must adapt to MiCA and national policy interpretations, even if they aren't directly regulated as CASPs.
SEO and Google Discover are volatile. Without editorial depth, multilingual support, and proper content attribution, visibility will suffer.
Multilingual expansion is a growth lever. Sites like The Market Periodical and CoinJournal DE prove that language agility can shield against geographic policy headwinds.
Broader media is now central. With 4x the traffic, finance and tech newsrooms have become essential for reach, even if they lack deep crypto DNA.
The contradiction of Q1 2025 was more than just ironic — it was symbolic. As Europe’s citizens leaned into crypto, the media meant to guide them fell into disrepair. The causes were complex: regulatory shockwaves, algorithmic overhauls, editorial burnout. But the outcome was simple and stark: a media landscape hollowed out just as the need for clarity grew most urgent.
Whether crypto media in Western Europe can rebuild — and how — remains an open question. But one thing is clear: it won’t be business as usual. With Outset PR mapping these shifts in detail in accordance with their data-driven approach to crypto media campaigns, it’s clear that media strategy now demands more precision than ever.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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