Crisis Attention Stack (GDELT)
Crypto news coverage of hacks, market stress, enforcement and regulation, stacked in four exclusive layers per 100,000 articles (7-day window) - the crisis attention gauge.
What is it?
This chart stacks four families of crisis articles: hacks and exploits, market stress (crashes, bankruptcies, liquidations), enforcement and fraud (arrests, trials, corruption), and regulation and legislation. The layers are exclusive: an article that belongs to several families is counted only in the first one that catches it, in the order above, so the total height counts each article exactly once. Volumes are expressed per 100,000 articles monitored by GDELT on a sliding 7-day window; the source publishes one file every fifteen minutes built from English-language and translated articles, and the history starts in February 2015. A day below 75% of its files is not computed; three periods of incomplete or missing publication are absent (October-November 2020, August 2021, 15 June to 1 July 2025).
How to read
Four stacked layers, one unit. The total height measures the intensity of crisis coverage; the distribution of colours shows which type of crisis dominates. A logarithmic scale is not offered on a stacked area, because a sum of layers cannot be read in log. Historical markers: total median 136, 5% of sessions above 263; the hacks layer has a median of 23 and a maximum of 456 (2017-05-18), the stress layer a median of 3.7 and a maximum of 115 (2022-06-19), the enforcement layer a median of 63, the regulation layer a median of 34 and a maximum of 147 (2025-07-20).
Key zones
No fixed zones: the levels of each layer vary widely across periods. Keep the orders of magnitude in mind. Hacks: cyber waves push the layer into the hundreds (456 at the highest, May 2017). Market stress: below 10 almost everywhere before 2017, it exceeds 100 in June 2022 (115). Enforcement and fraud: a high background layer (median 63) that peaks in the months following major collapses, as in December 2022 (262.7 for the month). Regulation: a background layer on a structural rise, with a monthly maximum of 147 in July 2025 and months above 130 during the winter of 2024-2025.
What to observe
Composition tells the story as much as height. In May 2017 the hacks layer dominates (456); in June 2022 it is market stress (115), followed in November 2022 by FTX (87). The regulation layer rises around major policy milestones: 136 during the spot ETF sequence in January 2024, 147 in July 2025. A crisis peak generally occurs at the height of the episode, often near capitulation phases, not at price tops.
Historical context
December 2017 combines several layers (hacks 136, enforcement 201, regulation 133 for the month). The COVID crash of March 2020 stays discreet (stress 11.3 on 2020-03-14). May 2021: hacks 108 and regulation 94, in a month where the stress layer reaches 50. Terra/Luna in May 2022 lifts stress to 72 on 2022-05-15, then Celsius in June 2022 to 115 on 2022-06-19, and FTX in November 2022 to 87 on 2022-11-17. January 2024: regulation peaks at 136 on 2024-01-14 during the spot ETF sequence, and the total of the spot ETF window reaches 303 with a median of 187.
Expert notes
Layer exclusivity is a method decision: without it, the same article would count in several families and the total height would exaggerate the intensity of the crisis. The priority order (hacks, then stress, then enforcement, then regulation) means an article about the trial of a hack stays classified under hacks. Crisis coverage measures attention, not the real severity of events; it also follows how news-dense that week was. Gaps in the series are periods without GDELT files, never zeros.
Common mistakes to avoid
Crisis spike = end of the market ❌. The press covers crises after the fact, and coverage peaks often coincide with maximum-fear phases, not with tops. The total height is not the sum of four independent themes: it counts each article once. Finally, a high enforcement layer does not mean fraud is increasing: it means ongoing cases fill the press.
Programmatic access
REST API
curl -sS \
'https://api.trinityinsights.io/api/v1/narrative-intelligence/metrics/narrative-gdelt-crisis-attention/data?timeframe=90d' \
-H 'X-API-Key: $TRINITY_API_KEY'MCP server
{
"tool": "get_chart_value",
"metric_id": "narrative-gdelt-crisis-attention",
"timeframe": "1y"
}Required tier: pro. See the pricing grid for the tier list and the MCP documentation for multi-client configuration.
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Institutional disclaimer
Trinity Insights is an educational and analytical tool. The metric above does not constitute investment advice. Trinity Insights is not a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) registered under MiCA Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. See the full disclaimer.