--- title: "How to Pitch Korean Crypto Journalists in 2026" description: "A reporter-by-reporter guide to Blockmedia, BloomingBit, and TokenPost: what each outlet prioritizes, how to pitch in Korean, and why Naver syndication matters as much as the placement itself." author: "Shilika Jain" date: "2026-10-15T11:28:00.009+00:00" tags: ["korea", "apac pr", "web3 pr", "crypto pr", "tier-1 outreach"] canonical: "https://www.shilikajain.com/blog/pitch-korean-crypto-journalists-blockmedia-bloomingbit-tokenpost" --- # How to Pitch Korean Crypto Journalists in 2026 By [Shilika Jain](https://www.shilikajain.com/authors/shilika-jain) - 10/15/2026 A reporter-by-reporter guide to Blockmedia, BloomingBit, and TokenPost: what each outlet prioritizes, how to pitch in Korean, and why Naver syndication matters as much as the placement itself. --- # How to Pitch Korean Crypto Journalists in 2026 Korean crypto media runs on different editorial logic than anything you have dealt with in the West. The pitch playbook that lands you a CoinDesk exclusive will get you ignored by a BloomingBit reporter. The timeline that works for a Blockworks embargo will not survive contact with TokenPost's publishing cadence. And the English-only press release you fire off at midnight EST will arrive at 2:00 PM KST, which is after every Korean outlet has already filled its morning editorial lineup. I have placed clients across BloomingBit, TokenPost, Blockmedia, and a handful of supporting Korean outlets. The clients ranged from DePIN protocols with zero Korean footprint to hardware wallet brands with existing Korean retail exposure. What follows is what actually works, organized by outlet. Before any of it, though, you need to understand the structural context. ## Why the Korean crypto media market is unlike every other APAC market Korea is roughly 50% of APAC's crypto-native media traffic. The market generated 57 million visits across major Korean crypto outlets in Q2 2025 alone. That concentration matters. It means Korean crypto journalists field a constant inbound from global projects, and they can afford to be selective. Three things Korean journalists ask before they even open your pitch: 1. **Are you listed or listing on a Korean exchange?** Upbit and Bithumb account for roughly 96% of Korean CEX volume. A project with no exchange footprint and no credible path to one will struggle to get editorial traction at any of the three major outlets. It does not need to be Upbit day-one, but there has to be a credible Korea-market story. 2. **Do you have a Korean investor or named Korean partner?** The Korean crypto audience is sophisticated and skeptical. A global VC name means less here than a Korean-known fund or ecosystem partner. If you have one, put it in the first line of the pitch. 3. **Are you VASP-registered or at minimum FSC-aware?** The Virtual Asset User Protection Act (VAUPA) came into force in July 2024. A second-phase Digital Asset Basic Act covering issuance and stablecoin rules is still moving through the legislative process. Korean journalists, especially at Blockmedia, will ask about your regulatory position before writing. If you cannot answer the question clearly, they will not run the story. None of this means you cannot get Korean coverage without a Bithumb listing already live. It means your pitch needs to show you take the Korean market seriously enough to have done the homework. ## BloomingBit: the outlet that earns institutional reach BloomingBit sits inside the Hankyung Media Group, which is Korea's largest financial media conglomerate. That parent-company relationship is what makes BloomingBit different from every other outlet on this list. A story published by BloomingBit can syndicate into hankyung.com and surface inside Naver News, which means you are getting mainstream Korean financial press reach, not just crypto-native traffic. The outlet runs both organic editorial and paid placements. Organic stories are chosen by reporters and editors who cover specific beats: RWA and tokenization, DeFi risk and sustainability, regulatory developments, and major exchange news. Paid placements are available for token launches, exchange listings, AMA announcements, and time-sensitive product news. I ran the Tangem self-custody data story into BloomingBit in 2026, and the placement appeared in Korean, English, and Japanese editions from a single brief. The stat that carried it was a single headline number: 66% of crypto users support self-custody. Korean journalists respond to data stories with a clean lead stat, just as Western journalists do, but the stat needs to be contextualized for a Korean retail audience. "Two-thirds of global crypto users" outperforms "66% of survey respondents" because the former reads naturally in a short Korean headline. **How to pitch BloomingBit:** - Send the pitch in Korean. Not machine-translated Korean. Have a native speaker or a professional translator produce the materials. Machine-translated Korean is immediately identifiable to any Korean journalist and signals that you do not take the market seriously. - Include a full Korean press kit, not just the press release. The kit should have: a project overview in Korean, team bios with any Korean names or Korean investor relationships flagged at the top, tokenomics summary, and high-resolution logos and images. Korean journalists rarely ask for follow-up materials. They publish what they receive. - Match your pitch to the right reporter. BloomingBit reporters cover distinct beats. Uk Jin, a reporter who covers RWA and tokenization, explained his editorial priorities clearly in a public interview: "I'm most drawn to stories surrounding real-world assets and tokenization, particularly where blockchain connects to tangible, everyday value." If your story is about DeFi risk or stablecoin policy, that is a different reporter. Pitching the wrong person signals you did not read their bylines. - Target the morning window. BloomingBit publishes its lead stories between 08:00 and 10:00 KST. Send your pitch the previous evening, KST, so it is waiting when the reporter starts their day. ## Blockmedia: the regulatory intelligence outlet Blockmedia launched in 2017 and is Korea's oldest dedicated blockchain media outlet. Its editorial identity is built around depth: regulatory analysis, institutional intelligence, proprietary research, and video content through its YouTube channel. Where BloomingBit skews toward retail investor accessibility, Blockmedia skews toward sophisticated investors, Web3 project builders, and anyone who needs to understand the Korean regulatory environment. The outlet also hosts BlockFesta, an annual blockchain industry conference in Seoul, which gives it a convening role in the Korean industry beyond just media. That event-organizer position matters for PR: getting a founder on a BlockFesta panel is a separate credibility signal from getting a story published. Blockmedia has an established sponsored content product alongside its editorial coverage, which makes it one of the more accessible outlets for projects that want to guarantee placement while the organic relationship develops. **How to pitch Blockmedia:** - Lead with regulation. If your story has any Korea-market regulatory dimension, put it in the subject line. Blockmedia's reporting on Korean regulations is considered "superior in-depth coverage" by institutional audiences, and the reporters who cover that beat are the ones most likely to respond to a well-framed pitch. - Bring original data or research. Blockmedia produces proprietary research in collaboration with external research firms. A pitch that comes with original data, a survey stat, or a research partnership angle sits much higher in the editorial priority queue than a standard announcement. - Offer a CEO interview or video component. Blockmedia runs its YouTube channel with daily content and conducts founder interviews both in video and text format. A pitch that comes with an available spokesperson and an offer to record a short video gives the Blockmedia team something to work with that most international projects never think to include. - Use the sponsored product as a bridgehead. If you do not yet have an organic relationship with a Blockmedia reporter, a sponsored placement gets your project in front of the outlet's audience and into Naver News search results. Use that placement to introduce yourself to the editorial team. Organic coverage follows credibility, and credibility in a new market comes from showing up consistently. > builders build, PR's pitch lol > > [Shilika Jain on X, 28 Mar 2025](https://x.com/Shilika_jain/status/1905715877187838364) This is the part global founders struggle with. The building is done. The product works. The pitch still needs to land. ## TokenPost: the volume outlet with Naver reach TokenPost describes itself as Korea's largest dedicated crypto media outlet, with 5.2 million monthly readers and the top organic position on Naver for crypto-related searches since 2021. Its publishing cadence is high-volume: multiple articles per day, covering price movements, project announcements, exchange news, and global crypto developments. That volume is both the opportunity and the constraint. The high publishing cadence means TokenPost is more accessible for press release-style coverage than Blockmedia or BloomingBit. A project with a Korean-language press release and a clearly newsworthy announcement, specifically an exchange listing, a partnership with a Korean entity, a product launch, or a fundraise, can typically achieve TokenPost coverage with a well-timed, well-translated pitch. The Naver dimension matters enormously. A TokenPost article that makes their Naver News feed is not just reaching TokenPost's direct readership. It surfaces in Naver search results when a Korean investor searches your project name. For a project preparing for a Bithumb or Coinone listing, that search visibility is part of the listing readiness signal. Bithumb specifically looks for Korean media coverage as evidence that a project will generate organic market activity post-listing. **How to pitch TokenPost:** - Korean language is non-negotiable. TokenPost's account leads are bilingual in English and Korean, but they expect Korean-language content production to come from you, not from them. A professionally translated press release is the floor. An advertorial written natively in Korean is the ceiling. - Send the pitch to a named editor or account lead. TokenPost's advertise.tokenpost.kr page makes their team accessible. For editorial pitches, identify the reporter who covers your category. For sponsored content, go directly to the commercial team. - Time it to exchange news or a Korean partner announcement. TokenPost's editorial queue prioritizes stories with clear Korean-market hooks. An exchange listing announcement, especially for Bithumb, Coinone, or a Korean CEX further down the tier ladder, is the single most reliable hook for TokenPost placement. - Understand that a TokenPost article without Telegram distribution does not exist. The outlet's Telegram channel is where Korean retail investors discover and share news. The editor controls which articles get pushed to Telegram. A story that runs on tokenpost.kr but does not make the Telegram push reaches a fraction of the addressable audience. When you are in conversation with the TokenPost team, ask specifically about Telegram distribution for your announcement. ## The piece everyone skips: Naver blog syndication Most global teams think about Korean crypto PR as a binary: did the article run or not. They miss the second-order effect that makes Korean media coverage worth the investment. When a Korean crypto outlet publishes your story, that article can appear in Naver News search results, which are where Korean investors go when they search your project name. Naver holds somewhere between 58% and 65% of Korean search market share for crypto-related queries. Google is a distant second. If you are not in Naver's ecosystem, a significant portion of Korean retail investors who search your project will find either nothing or your competitors. The practical implication: a story in BloomingBit or TokenPost is not just a media placement. It is a Naver SEO asset. Treat it as both. The secondary layer is a brand-owned Naver Blog. Running an official project blog on Naver, updated two to three times per week with Korean-language content covering project technology, market analysis, and announcements, builds your C-Rank, which is Naver's creator-authority metric. A high C-Rank means your blog posts surface in Naver search results alongside the outlet coverage. The mistake I see Western teams make is treating Naver as an afterthought. They secure the BloomingBit placement, screenshot it for the investor update, and move on. Meanwhile, the Korean retail investor who searches their token name three weeks later finds a single article and no ongoing presence. The outlet placement seeds the search presence. The Naver Blog sustains it. ## When to use a Korean PR intermediary There is no shame in not having a direct Korean media relationship. These are language-gated, culturally specific relationships that take real time to build. The question is not whether to use a Korean intermediary but which kind. A Korean PR agency that has existing reporter relationships at BloomingBit, Blockmedia, and TokenPost can compress months of relationship-building into a single campaign cycle. The test is whether they can show you editorial placements, not just paid placements, from the past 12 months at the outlets you care about. Wire distribution services that claim Korean reach, like generic crypto wire services with "Naver" in their product description, are not the same thing. They put your content on a distribution platform. Whether a Korean reporter picks it up is entirely dependent on the newsworthiness of your announcement. For a project with no Korean presence and no hook, the distribution goes nowhere. My own approach, for the APAC PR campaigns I run, is to build the Korean press kit first, identify the credibility anchor (Korean investor, exchange listing, or Korean partner), then approach specific outlets with a direct, Korean-language pitch from a named contact. The intermediary value is in the existing trust relationship with the reporter, not in the distribution infrastructure. A rough decision framework: | Scenario | Right approach | |---|---| | You have a Korean exchange listing in 4 weeks | Direct pitch to BloomingBit and TokenPost via an APAC-connected PR contact, Korean-language kit ready day one | | You are building Korean presence over 3 to 6 months | Naver Blog, Blockmedia sponsored placement as credibility layer, organic relationship with one reporter per outlet | | You have a data story with a single headline stat | BloomingBit editorial pitch, frame for Korean retail relevance, offer multi-language (KR/EN/JP) distribution | | You have no Korean footprint yet | TokenPost press release placement first, then Blockmedia sponsored content, then organic relationship building | ## Three pitching mistakes global teams make every time **Sending one English pitch to all three outlets simultaneously.** Korean journalists talk to each other. If you pitch BloomingBit, Blockmedia, and TokenPost the same story on the same day without offering any differentiated angle or timing, at least one of them will notice and choose not to run it. Decide which outlet gets the exclusive or the first-mover window, then stagger the rest. **Assuming a Korean investor name is enough.** Having a Korean VC in your cap table gets the door open. What keeps the journalist reading is the story for Korean retail investors: what can they do with your product, is there a Korean exchange path, what does VAUPA compliance look like for users in Korea. Investor name is the hook, not the story. **Ignoring Telegram.** Korean crypto media distribution runs partly through Telegram channels managed by the outlets themselves. A story that does not get pushed to the outlet's Telegram channel reaches only the outlet's direct web readers. Ask about Telegram distribution every time. It is not automatically included and not automatically offered. --- I have run APAC campaigns across Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, and India. The Korea market is the highest-volume and the most unforgiving for teams that arrive with a translated press release and no relationship. It is also the most rewarding when you respect the editorial logic. If you have a Korean campaign in the next 60 to 90 days and want a clear read on whether your current pitch materials will land, book time with me below. **[Book a 30-min teardown with Shilika](https://calendly.com/shilikajain/30min/)** --- **Book a 30-min teardown with Shilika** - https://calendly.com/shilikajain/30min/ Canonical: https://www.shilikajain.com/blog/pitch-korean-crypto-journalists-blockmedia-bloomingbit-tokenpost