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.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

With Galaxy set to report earnings tomorrow, Rittenhouse Research rated it a strong buy in a recent note

article-image

A new quantum experiment shows that observation changes reality — but investors knew that already

article-image

Solana apps and app tokens could be in for a ‘mass repricing’

article-image

Company looks to bring tokenized equities “to meet the moment in this new regulatory environment,” CEO Brian Armstrong said

article-image

Musings on securities laws, plus Paul Atkins unveiling “Project Crypto” at the SEC

article-image

A spooky story about the importance of self-custody