Most Common Founder Questions a16z Crypto Fields

In a candid discussion, a16z Crypto's CTO Eddy Lazzarin and General Counsel Miles Jennings reveal how the questions they field from founders have dramatically evolved, painting a picture of an industry shifting from foundational survival to mainstream ambition. The problems are moving up the stack—from protocol-level anxieties to application-layer execution.

From Tokenomics to Go-to-Market

• "A year or two or three years ago, it was definitely, 'How do I launch a token... without getting myself in big trouble?'... Today, they want to ship fast. They want to make great deals with other companies, make partnerships, release products, and hire people."
• The primary concern for founders has pivoted from navigating the legal minefield of token launches to pure business execution. This marks a significant maturation from foundational setup to a growth and go-to-market mindset.
• This shift is a strong signal that the industry is moving past its speculative infancy. The focus is no longer just on creating a token but on building a sustainable business around a product.

The New Rules of Decentralization

• "We're moving from this efforts-based decentralization framework to this control-based decentralization framework. What does that mean for entrepreneurs in terms of how they design their systems?"
• "No longer do you have to have conversations around, 'Can this person be in the same Slack as this person?' Instead, how do you actually focus on the more technical elements of designing incredibly neutral, autonomous systems?"
• The regulatory lens is sharpening its focus from off-chain human coordination (the "efforts-based" model) to on-chain technical design (the "control-based" model).
• This allows founders to worry less about performative decentralization and more on engineering genuinely neutral and autonomous protocols, which simplifies development and aligns incentives toward building robust systems.

From Gas Fees to Great UX

• "I used to get a lot of stuff about scaling... Now no one cares about that... because we kind of solved it... Now I get more questions about UX and how to make things intuitive, wallet design, key management systems, permissioning systems."
• The era of obsessing over gas optimization is over. Thanks to Layer 2s and increased base-layer capacity, scaling is no longer the primary technical bottleneck for most projects.
• The new frontier is user experience. Founders are now focused on abstracting away complexity through intuitive wallet design, seamless key management, and sophisticated permissioning to make products accessible to a wider audience.
• Privacy is also emerging as a major theme, with founders grappling with how to implement it in a technically sound and compliant manner as crypto intersects more with traditional finance.

Key Takeaways

• The overarching story is one of progress. The problems are getting better—they’re moving from the existential to the operational. Crypto is growing up, and the new challenges are about building real products for real users and navigating the path to mainstream adoption.
• The conversation has shifted from "Can we build this?" to "How do we grow this?" Founders are now focused on shipping products, forging partnerships, and hiring talent, signaling a decisive move from infrastructure to business execution.
• Regulation is focusing on code, not conduct. The move to a "control-based" decentralization framework means what matters is how technically neutral your system is, not who is in your Slack channel.
• With scaling solved, UX is the new bottleneck. The industry has moved past the gas wars; the next great challenge is creating intuitive user experiences through better wallet design and key management.

For further insights, watch the discussion here: Link