Thesis, a venture studio launched in 2014, today announced a Bitcoin layer 2 called Mezo, which the company describes as a “Bitcoin economic layer.” The launch follows a $21 million Series A raise led by Pantera Capital and with participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, and Draper Associates, among others.
Thesis says Mezo is distinct from other L2s because it enables users to access applications that facilitate the use of Bitcoin tokens, promoting a circular Bitcoin economy—it can be more than “savings technology.”
“What I think distinguishes an economic layer versus any other chain is that it’s doing good for Bitcoin— both the money and the network. And then, it’s doing good for individual Bitcoin holders,” Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis and founder of Mezo, told Fortune.
Mezo takes the otherwise inert Bitcoin holdings of HODLers and “puts them to work,” the company said, in a points program called the “Proof of HODL.” The longer their Bitcoin deposits are stored, the more a contributor’s “HODL score multipliers.”
“We want to make sure that people that have Bitcoin can actually run this chain,” Luongo said, and the longer customers use their tokens with Mezo, the more “aligned” they become with the chain.
For a user’s role in securing the network, Mezo provides yield—giving Bitcoiners something for doing what they would otherwise be doing: HODLing Bitcoin.
“Whatever happens on this chain is good for people that hold Bitcoin, and it’s good for people who use Bitcoin on the chain—I think that’s key,” he explained. “Anyone who’s ever really touched the asset should be able to earn on their Bitcoin. It shouldn’t just be something like a pet rock or something that’s sitting on the shelf, you know?”
Mezo was built to deepen the capabilities of the Bitcoin infrastructure by aiding cheaper and faster transactions without deviating from the network’s foundational principles, the company said in a statement. The permissionless layer—meaning a public blockchain with no restrictions nor central administrator—leverages a neutral smart contract infrastructure to offer a broader range of applications on the Bitcoin network, the company said.
The layer 2 will go live with ecosystem support from Thesis-built tBTC, which allows for “trust-minimized” bridging to various ecosystems. Mezo “highlights the immense potential of tBTC in making Bitcoin a productive asset,” Anjan Vinod, principal at ParaFi Capital, said in a statement.
“This feels like a breakthrough moment for Bitcoin as a technology, not just an asset,” Dan Morehead, founder and managing partner of Pantera Capital, added. “The Bitcoin community has been great at holding their Bitcoin for a long time, but they’re also ready to put their assets to work.”