73% of LATAM crypto media lost traffic in Q1 2025, six outlets held majority reach

Amid Latin America’s rapid surge in crypto adoption, organic PR presents a golden opportunity. But that opportunity can quickly become a minefield, when markets turn volatile and Google rewrites the rules of discoverability almost quarterly. In Q1 2025, our analytics desk conducted an audit of active crypto newsrooms across the region. What follows is an exclusive performance map of LATAM media players – a must-have in a landscape where an outlet’s value can shift overnight.

This March, Forbes spotlighted the transition of many of 2025’s most consequential crypto events to Argentina, Brazil, and other parts of Latin America. That forecast came after Chainalysis logged a 42.5% year-over-year surge and $415 billion in on-chain value flowing into the region, making it the second-fastest-growing crypto market globally.

For crypto brands operating in (or expanding to) Latin America, organic PR is becoming pivotal in shaping public perception and building user trust. Media outreach sounds like the natural next step, and PR teams begin preparing: analyzing available outlets, assessing their traffic and rankings, and shortlisting the most appealing options. Some try to skip those burdensome steps by turning to PR agencies that specialize in Latin America and offer pre-made media packages. The outcome is often the same: if the budget allows, the deal goes through.

But what’s being bought, in many cases, is a black box: these packages promise access to local outlets while ignoring a crucial context – how traffic is actually distributed within the region, how stable that distribution is, and whether it aligns with market momentum. 

Powered by Outset PR’s internal media monitoring system, this report covers the first quarter of 2025 and aims to improve media planning by mapping the dynamics behind LATAM crypto outlets: who gained, who lost, and who held the bulk of real crypto influence.

Method and scope: What was measured, and why

By early 2025, Latin American audiences had begun gravitating toward more trust-grade media. As a result, smaller outlets without distinctive angles – or those whose domains lapsed, redirected, or stopped publishing – simply couldn’t compete and slid off the radar entirely. 

So we focused only on media with measurable traffic between January and March 2025 – across crypto-native publications, finance/crypto hybrids, and general economic desks that cover crypto occasionally. We used SimilarWeb to track their total visits and month-over-month shifts, giving us insight into both reach and momentum.

To come up with meaningful patterns, we filtered the dataset down to a clean sample of 55 outlets which met three strict criteria:

• They were active and independent (no redirects, rebrands, or dormant domains).

• They delivered consistent desktop and mobile traffic across all three months (we omitted sites that only recently launched their LATAM-focused newsrooms – such as coindesk.com/es or bitcoin.com/es – as they lack representative data).

• Their primary audience came from Latin American countries – either as their top geography or within the top three, provided traffic volume was comparable.

In this sample, we also excluded sites where Latin American readers made up only a small share of the audience, with most traffic coming from Spain or Portugal – like es.cointelegraph.com. These outlets will be covered separately in a forthcoming analysis of the Western European mediascape.

What emerged were two clear trends: 

• In Q1, only a handful of publishers maintained growth, while the majority experienced a gradual decline. 

• LATAM crypto mediascape is highly concentrated and capped.

January 2025: Bitcoin’s rally sets the baseline

In January, Bitcoin (BTC) surged to an all-time high of above $109K, fueled by a wave of optimism after President Trump’s inauguration. This momentum was amplified by continued institutional investment – such as MicroStrategy’s BTC purchases – and the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which broadened mainstream access. 

In Latin America, the price rally coincided with a surge in fake news involving Brazil’s Pix payment system – falsely linking it to Bitcoin integration and account freezes – that blurred the lines between legitimate economic policy and crypto disinformation. The convergence of crypto narratives with mainstream economic themes drew attention beyond the crypto-native audience, leading to a rise in traffic for hybrid finance/crypto outlets and traditional economic news desks. 

Cumulative visits across all active sites amounted to 94.48M. These counts form the baseline, from which we tracked how LATAM crypto mediascape shifted in February and March.

February 2025: The quarter’s steepest drop

In February, Latin American crypto publishers faced pressure on two fronts. Amid the Bybit exchange hack, meme coin scandals, and U.S. trade tensions sparked by President Trump’s new tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Bitcoin fell roughly 17% – one of its worst months on record. Several altcoins lost 30–50% of their value. In the U.S., spot-Bitcoin ETFs mirrored the panic, leaking around $3B in outflows during an eight-day selloff that ended on February 28.

As markets reeled, most outlets saw their visibility in search erode in anticipation of Google’s March 2025 update. Early algorithmic shifts undermined discoverability at a structural level: pages dropped in rankings, indexed content reshuffled, and audience pathways narrowed.

In this turbulent climate, 78.18% of media lost traffic – the steepest imbalance of the quarter. Only 21.82% managed to grow from the previous month.

 

Cumulative visits across the 56 active media slid to 81.53M – down 13.71% compared to January.

March 2025: Signs of adaptation, but a split field

In March, Bitcoin experienced heightened volatility following its steep late-February collapse, with prices fluctuating between $83K and $94K amid geopolitical tensions and market uncertainty. Despite a brief rally sparked by Trump's announcement of a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the lack of clarity and ongoing macroeconomic pressures prevented a sustained recovery. As a result, BTC continued its overall downward trend throughout the month.

Meanwhile, the long-anticipated Google March update finally landed, reshaping LATAM crypto mediascape once again. Momentum began to return: 24 of 55 outlets gained traffic. However, the field remained highly polarized, with the majority of publishers still in decline – marking the third consecutive month of erosion for many.

We also take special note of cryptonews.com/br, which went dark by the end of Q1 (-100%). As the domain was inaccessible from within Brazil, we suspect that recent Brazilian legislation regulating betting and related advertising may have prompted a temporary government block. There is no indication of a Google-related restriction, since our analysts in Europe were able to access the site without issue. We have contacted the regulatory agency Anatel for comment and will update this information if and when we receive a response.

Cumulative visits inched up to 85.59M – a 4.98% recovery from February, but still well below January’s level.

Q1 subtotals: LATAM media in the red, growth stories aren’t what they seem

The first quarter of 2025 was marked by sharp Bitcoin volatility and an algorithm-driven correction across LATAM crypto press. Combined with audience fatigue and a seasonal post-holiday traffic decline, February’s market downturn reflected both investor sentiment and rising expectations for content quality driven by evolving search signals.

Although partially followed by a recovery, Outset PR’s research revealed that Q1 dynamics reflected a broader trend: nearly three-fourths of Latin American publishers failed to realign with algorithmic priorities in an uncertain market. Google’s March core update reinforced their existing structural weaknesses, compounding earlier traffic declines.

As for the standouts in Q1 2025, full data from Outset PR’s internal monitoring revealed 15 crypto media outlets with positive traffic changes.

You’ve seen the traffic charts and rankings… but what should come next? The instinctive move is clear: capitalize on momentum. Reach out to the outlets that gained traction in Q1, negotiate coverage, and enjoy a potential boost in brand visibility.

But not so fast. While some Q1 winners with over 1M monthly visits are inconsistent in their crypto coverage, others simply lack broad reach, with average traffic struggling to cross 300K visits.

LATAM crypto reach is centralized: Six media, 69% of the market

While several Latin American outlets we reviewed surpass 1M monthly visits, none are crypto-native. Ámbito Financiero, InfoMoney, iProfessional, El Diario, Money Times, Valor Investe, Seu Dinheiro, iProUp, and Bloomberg Línea all fall under the finance and general news categories, offering occasional crypto coverage rather than dedicated reporting. Their crypto content tends to be cyclical – increasing during bull markets and retreating during downturns.

In addition, most of these high-traffic portals are based in, or significantly shaped by, Brazil, leaving them susceptible to regulatory and political shifts, such as content censorship and advertising restrictions (particularly around betting and crypto sectors). As a result, these outlets offer limited reliability for consistent crypto visibility. Their opportunistic editorial focus on crypto can inflate estimated PR campaign impressions without ensuring relevance or engagement from a crypto-native audience.

In contrast, Q1 2025 data reveals that the crypto-only mediascape in LATAM is highly centralized. 

Just six outlets – CriptoNoticias, Cointelegraph Brasil, Livecoins, CriptoFacil, Bitfinanzas, and Portal do Bitcoin – surpassed 400K average monthly visits. Collectively, they amassed 4.11M visits, accounting for 69.13% of total traffic across the 38 crypto-focused sites analyzed.

Following this top tier, the next seven outlets – Cointimes, BeInCrypto Brasil, Foxbit, Diario Bitcoin, Cripto247, Crypto Tendencia, and CryptoMarket – draw between 130K and 270K monthly visits, underscoring a sharp traffic drop-off. From a PR standpoint, these mid-tier outlets may serve well in targeted or vertical campaigns, but they lack the reach for broad exposure.

Brazil remains the dominant traffic hub for crypto content in Latin America. Among the top 13 crypto-only outlets, seven are in Brazilian Portuguese – demonstrating both strong volume and resilience, even amid their Q1 traffic declines. 

The remaining outlets form a fragmented long tail. More than half (24 sites) attract fewer than 91K visits per month, and 14 of them draw under 10K – including Criptoeconomia, 99Cripto, and Criptomonedas. While these media may offer SEO or local targeting value, their direct visibility is negligible for most crypto businesses.

Importantly, no crypto-only outlet crossed the 1M monthly average in Q1 2025 – a clear ceiling that should guide expectations for PR within LATAM crypto mediascape. To achieve seven-figure audience reach, crypto PR strategies must calibrate around market conditions and consider timely amplification via high-traffic, non-crypto-specific portals when the macro narrative aligns (such as during regulatory updates or bull market surges).

Get armed with the full dataset at Outset PR blog article, where the raw data are revealed. 

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