Blockworks Shuts News Division in Data Pivot, Faces DeFiLlama Data Resale Accusation

Blockworks, a crypto media company, announced on Wednesday that it is shutting down its news division and laying off its journalism team as it pivots to focus exclusively on data and software products. Co-founder Jason Yanowitz revealed the decision in a lengthy post, stating that the company, founded in 2017 to address the "information problem" in crypto, is now transitioning to a "software/data first" organization due to a changed media landscape where users increasingly rely on data dashboards over traditional articles.

Despite reporting record revenues in 2025 and projecting another record year in 2026, with Fortune noting in April that Blockworks was on track to generate over $30 million in revenue this year and had been profitable nearly every year since inception, the layoffs affect several journalists. Senior news editor Katherine Ross, economic and crypto policy reporter Casey Wagner, and senior reporter Ben Strack confirmed their departures. Yanowitz attributed the pivot to the "particularly rapid growth" of the data business over the past two years, emphasizing that investors and crypto protocols rely on Blockworks' data daily.

However, on the same day, DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi publicly accused Blockworks of reselling DeFiLlama's free data on a paid analytics platform priced at $4,500 per year, violating their Terms of Service. 0xngmi shared a screenshot of a chart from Blockworks' paywalled dashboard that appeared to use DeFiLlama's data, claiming it contained recent data from October 2025. Blockworks' head of data, Dan Smith, responded by stating the data was deprecated months ago and not updated, calling it an "edge case," but 0xngmi countered, calling Smith a liar and highlighting the chart's functionality.

The community reaction was swift, with many users siding with DeFiLlama and criticizing Blockworks for the layoff announcement's tone, which framed the job cuts as secondary to the company's financial success. Martyna MBL, Senior Director at Serotonin, described the communication as "tone-deaf," noting it lacked respect for the team that built the brand's credibility. Blockworks, which raised $12 million at a $135 million valuation in May 2023, plans to continue its newsletters, podcasts, and events like the Digital Asset Summit in Abu Dhabi while rolling out new data products.