There's still money being lost; when you buy coins, and when the developer sells them. Unless they can pay their usual expenses using cryptocurrencies, they'll need to sell, at a loss (even if possible less than CC).
In practically any monetary transaction, there's some overhead and thus money being lost, (3rd parties involved, price volatility etc.) and so the question then becomes, how much money is being lost? Cryptocurrencies offer lower overhead in this regard, at least for now.