Note this morning that both Founders Fund and Haun Ventures announced *seed* stage deals for teams building in the stablecoin ecosystem with an exclusive in mainstream financial press (in addition to creating direct moments and buzz on X and elsewhere). Why?

As crypto moves further into fintech, the role of mainstream media becomes more important.

Direct-to-crypto works for early adopters and developers. But it doesn’t reach the broader audience that matters for long-term adoption including policy makers, regulators, banks, fintech execs, and institutional investors. These groups still get most of their information from traditional outlets like the FT, Bloomberg, and Axios.

The media landscape today is especially difficult for crypto. Many reporters and editors are skeptical. Some are outright hostile. Even if reporters are crypto-pilled, they face an uphill battle with editors who don't get it. This is true even for projects building in relatively uncontroversial areas like stablecoins or infrastructure.

This is why everyone building in crypto, but especially in payments and RWAs, needs to raise the bar when thinking about comms: no matter how unfair, how biased or antagonistic the media seems, you need comms people that know how to play the game as it is on the board and deliver results. Bonus if someone on your cap table has that skill in-house.

If crypto is going to be part of the next generation of financial infrastructure, it needs to be understood by the people who are responsible for overseeing and integrating that infrastructure and for better or worse the mainstream media is going to make a difference.