The Financial Times published a piece this week titled “Why struggling companies are loading up on bitcoin.”

At first glance it looks like a story about corporate adoption of the world’s leading digital asset. Read beyond the headline and a problem emerges. The article uses “Bitcoin” and “crypto” interchangeably, which gives the impression they are the same thing.

The article includes high profile Bitcoin cases like MicroStrategy alongside firms acquiring other tokens such as Ether or Solana. It reports total figures for “crypto purchases” while presenting the trend as companies “loading up on bitcoin.” Warnings about systemic risk refer to companies holding crypto assets far above their revenues but do not distinguish between Bitcoin and other assets, which changes how the data can be interpreted.

The difference matters because Bitcoin is not “crypto.”

Bitcoin is a decentralised, fixed supply network with 16 years of uptime and a clear monetary policy. Crypto is a catch all for millions of tokens with very different levels of security, regulation, liquidity and purpose.

A company adding bitcoin to its treasury as a long term reserve asset is not the same as one speculating on illiquid, high volatility altcoins. The risk profile, motives and signal to the market are different.

When journalists blur these lines, the analysis loses its foundation. Readers are left with an oversimplified narrative that only holds together if Bitcoin and crypto are treated as one category. If an argument depends on merging those two worlds, it is not analysis. It is misdirection, and it is harmful.

Many policymakers read mainstream articles like this, take the narrative at face value and form their views about bitcoin without consulting subject matter experts or reviewing primary data.

This is how flawed coverage can end up influencing lawmaking.

In 2018 the UK Treasury Select Committee’s report on “crypto-assets” grouped Bitcoin and altcoins into a single category, a framing that mirrored mainstream coverage at the time. That framing then became part of the political record and aligned with the concerns later cited by the FCA when it introduced a ban on crypto derivatives for retail investors.

In the EU, early drafts of the MiCA legislation included language that would have effectively banned proof of work networks such as Bitcoin by subjecting them to strict environmental standards. These provisions reflected the narrative common in mainstream coverage at the time, which portrayed Bitcoin’s energy use without context.

Media driven misconceptions about Bitcoin have already influenced regulation. If coverage like this continues to shape political understanding, the effort required to undo the damage will only grow, and Bitcoin will be regulated on fiction rather than fact, as it appears to have been so far.

I am glad Bitcoin is getting attention from mainstream media, but not like this.

Brandolini’s Law says it takes ten times the effort to correct misinformation as it does to produce it. If that pattern continues, the cost of fixing the damage will be enormous and the policy mistakes even more so.