New initiatives
“The tool that I could only dream of while working as a PR manager and head of PR across multiple companies”.
That’s how Mike Ermolaev described Outset Media Index (OMI) when presenting it to the community.
More than a year of team effort, endless brainstorms, personal contributions (big and small findings), midnight debates… All of this resulted in what we call “a standardized benchmark” that powers media outlet analysis with structure and data-driven clarity.
OMI brings together traffic, engagement, SEO, and collaboration signals into one system, giving teams a clear enough view of where attention actually holds in crypto and adjacent industries, and how outlets compare in practice.
To learn more about the real value of OMI, read our dedicated blog post. Additionally, a recent interview with Mike Ermolaev and Sofia Belotskaia gives a firsthand context on why OMI emerged, how it’s organized internally, and where it’s heading from this phase. You can also follow OMI updates on X and Telegram.
The soft launch of OMI on March 12 gained visible media traction, generating dozens of news stories and organic articles, with especially strong coverage in Cointelegraph Brazil, Cointribune, and crypto.news.
Industry recognition
If early 2026 taught us something, it’s this: if you chase adding “award-winning” to your company byline, you end up with low-impact mentions that barely add credibility. But if you stay true to who you are and keep doing what you do best consistently, people do notice – and they do care.
That’s how the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers (ACJR) recognized Outset PR’s analysis of Cointelegraph’s global traffic collapse. In their regular newsletter, the largest organization of crypto journalists and researchers featured our work in the “Top blogs, newsletters and op-eds” category.
We’ve been closely following the news leader and all its language versions since October 2025, tracking performance across multiple data points. The conclusion we arrived at is not particularly comforting: in today’s search environment, publishers have to operate within systems they don’t fully understand. The ACJR mention sharpens this point, as more journalists acknowledge that Google’s unpredictability doesn’t just lead to traffic loss. It creates informational asymmetry across the industry.
Meanwhile, in the agency space, Cryptic named Outset PR among the top 5 European crypto marketing agencies. The inclusion reinforces how the market is beginning to read our positioning: as a PR brand built around AI-era discoverability and media intelligence.
Editorial highlights
In the latest edition of Web3 Communication Talks, Mike Ermolaev spoke with Jamie Elkaleh of Bitget Wallet about how crypto marketing is changing as wallets move beyond trading and start behaving more like everyday financial products. The conversation touched on utility-driven positioning, differences between Asian and Western market logic, and why data-backed PR now carries more weight than raw article volume.
We also published a piece on how media relationships in crypto PR are actually built. Drawing on the experience of Antonina Kaminskaia, Outset PR’s global media manager, it looked at what happens between the cold email and a real working relationship with an outlet: how to approach first contacts, why follow-ups work better when they stay human and direct, and how systematization turns scattered outreach into something durable.
Our series Outset Legal Lens continued with a new article by Outset PR’s head of security and compliance Alice Frei examining token communication. The piece touched on the line between product explanation and implied financial expectation, the different risk profiles of CeFi and DeFi narratives, and the level of message discipline teams need if they want token PR to stay defensible over time.
Events and community
March also brought a couple of notable X Spaces appearances.
Mike Ermolaev and Maximilian Fondé, Outset PR’s senior media analyst, joined “The New Metrics for Media That Actually Drive Business Outcomes” on behalf of OMI. The conversation focused on how media performance should be measured when the real benchmark is business impact rather than surface visibility.
Later in the month, Mike also took part in “What’s Q2 Bringing to the Market?”, a broader discussion that added Outset PR’s perspective on the relationship between industry events, news headlines, and crypto prices into a wider conversation.
Behind the scenes
Finally, two new talented team members became part of Outset PR.
Lidia Win came on board as customer success manager, working across client communication, delivery, and internal coordination to ensure our clients and partners get the best agency experience – and, of course, the best campaign outcomes.
“I probably have around 300GB of memes stored somewhere in my head, so I tend to bring a bit of that energy into everyday work. I genuinely believe that a lighter atmosphere makes collaboration stronger – and if it adds a few extra years along the way, that’s a nice bonus.”
Andrej Radović also joined the team to take over scaling our Brand Discovery service, bringing around ten years of crypto experience and a background in content optimized for better visibility across search engines and large language models.
“From what I’ve seen so far, the Outset PR team runs on the 4C principle (creativity, controlled chaos, and caffeine) and somehow makes it all look easy! I’m here to be part of that process and help build on it.”
What’s next
As we move forward, Outset PR will continue contributing to public conversations around media, PR, and discoverability through research, editorial work, and ongoing dialogue with the industry.
We’ll be back with the next monthly digest soon.
