Crypto has to be more ‘efficient’ with the money being used

“Be prepared to do more with less,” Framework Ventures’ Michael Anderson said

article-image

Framework Ventures co-founder Michael Anderson | DAS 2025 New York by Mike Lawrence for Blockworks

share

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


“Be prepared to do more with less,” Framework Ventures’ Michael Anderson said on this week’s Empire round-up

Empire co-host Santiago Santos joined the Bell Curve round-up to chat about the cycle, and he talked a lot about what this moment means for founders, given that the overall attitude around crypto is pretty bullish…and yet it’s a tough time to build in crypto. 

As Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick told us yesterday, the valuations are pretty high at this point, and Anderson added another interesting layer: This industry has to be “efficient with the money that we’re using.”

“ There is generally going to be less money than people expect. Every year over the last five years, we’ve had less money than the previous year from a venture-allocation perspective,” he added. 

For the founders out there, Santos offered some advice from his unique position of being both a VC and a founder himself: Keep at least 24 months of runway and “understand your position in the stack.”

Which means having an understanding of a monetization plan. 

Santos added that Facebook, back when it was planning to go public — and even after it IPO’d — didn’t have a monetization plan. It actually got dinged by investors for it, if you look at the historical data.

“It just said, we’re gonna build a killer product that people love and we’ll then figure out how to monetize,” Santos said. But as crypto evolves, the path towards monetization models will also become more clear as users come onboard and — as Santos put it himself — “ if you have attention of the user, you can monetize the shit out of it.”

So go forth and monetize…one day.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful