Friends With Benefits. The name still feels…suggestive. Back in 2020, it was the crypto project everyone wanted into. Erykah Badu and Azealia Banks were members. It was a digital velvet rope, and people were handing over cash to get a peek inside.
- Friends With Benefits (FWB) was a popular crypto project in 2020 that offered a sense of community during lockdowns. It attracted a creative class and was seen as a “decentralized Soho House.”
- After initial success and a high valuation, FWB is now focusing on building practical applications of Web3 beyond finance. They aim to foster innovation in areas like music, film, and culture.
- FWB has launched Friends With Builders, a program to support creative technologists in building useful and mainstream applications. The focus is on utility first, with crypto operating subtly in the background.
The timing was perfect, really. Lockdowns had everyone craving connection, and FWB offered a community. Six thousand people bought the token, and chapters popped up in places like Los Angeles and New York City. It felt…real, in a way a lot of crypto didn’t. A bit silly, maybe, but real.
The New York Times, predictably, poked fun. They wrote about members developing a flavored sparkling yerba maté. Six dollars a can instead of two. The implication? Smart people with money and time, but maybe not a lot to *show* for it. Still, they nailed something new. FWB wasn’t just a token; it was a tokenized community, a “decentralized Soho House,” as the Times put it. A VIP lounge for the crypto creative class.
They raised ten million dollars, then got a hundred million dollar valuation after a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Impressive. But what did they actually *do*? Events were cool. Community building was strong. The token price went up. After that? It was a bit of a question mark. “The original model was just a group chat with a token,” CEO Greg Bresnitz admits. “The benefits at that time were just alpha.” Which is crypto-speak for insider information, basically.
Growing Up After the Crash
Fast forward to 2025. FTX is a bad memory. The Crash happened. And FWB? They look…different. More serious. Less about exclusive parties and more about building things people actually want. They’re trying to broaden Web3 beyond just finance. Less yerba maté, more actual innovation in music, film, and culture. It’s a shift.
“This is a good inflection point for the industry,” Bresnitz says. “We have the opportunity to encourage a new wave of builders to the space. Making that vision and the pie bigger is incredibly important.” They’ve had success in the physical world, he points out. Now they want to bring that value back online. It’s a sensible goal, if a little ambitious.
This week, they announced Friends With Builders, a cohort-based program partnering with AWS, Alchemy, ThirdWeb, and a bunch of others. The idea is simple: get creative technologists together, give them tools, and let them build. The first cohort will focus on AI agents. It’s not a hackathon, Bresnitz stresses. Those, he says, are too short, too intense. This is about sustained development.
“The general model of the hackathon doesn’t work,” he explains. “You get eight hours at a conference, 48 hours to build it and then get the prize money. That only speaks to a certain type of builder who can work intensively over 48 hours.” The reward here isn’t a prize; it’s a finished product. And the tech is meant to be under the hood, not the main attraction.
“Someone could come in and build the 700th DeFi platform and we’re not going to stop them. They totally can. That’s great. But, for me, personally, what I believe the industry needs is to bundle all this up into something that feels totally normal,” Bresnitz says. He points to Blackbird, the restaurant loyalty app, as an example. Useful, mainstream, and the crypto element is subtle. Utility first, crypto second.
A New Kind of Builder
“We need a new type of person in this space,” Bresnitz insists. “The persona of FWB has always been creative technologist. These are people who understand what people want and they’re looking for technology to support that. That’s different from what we see oftentimes [in crypto], which is ‘we built a hammer that’s also a screwdriver, who wants it?’” It’s a fair point. Too much of crypto feels like solutions looking for problems.
He believes crypto has built some incredible tools. Now it needs to build things people actually use. Builders in the program will have access to founders at the partner companies, plus developer credits and support. Friends With Builders will run quarterly, with a break for FWB’s annual FEST gathering in California. Base, another key partner, holds its own event, Base Camp, nearby.
As a test run, FWB recently ran a pilot program with World (formerly Worldcoin). They received 140 applications and builders created 40 mini-apps. They flew to Buenos Aires for Crecimiento, and some will demo their work in New York on May 21. Two projects already have term sheets from investors. Not bad.
Bresnitz seems genuinely optimistic, but also…humble. He doesn’t pretend crypto has all the answers. “We haven’t cracked the code yet,” he says. “This to me is about saying ‘can we try something different?’” It’s a good question. And maybe, just maybe, FWB is starting to find some answers.
