Pantera Capital led the funding round for Mezo, a blockchain venture studio that recently confirmed a fundraising round earlier this week. Multicoin, Hack VC, ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Draper Associates, Primitive Ventures, and Asymmetric Ventures were among the entities that joined the effort. Individual investors, including Dan Held, Tim Draper, and the pseudonymous DCF God, also participated.
Mezo operates as a permissionless Bitcoin economic layer, utilizing a neutral smart contract framework to offer a variety of applications. It aims to expand the utility of Bitcoin beyond trading and is a recent addition to the wave of Bitcoin L2 networks. According to Thesis, Mezo leverages a neutral smart contract infrastructure to facilitate various user applications, enabling users to access applications using Bitcoin across various domains and fostering a dynamic circular economy.
A notable feature of Mezo is its “Proof of HODL” points program, which incentivizes users to actively engage with their Bitcoin holdings on the platform. Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis and Mezo’s founder, emphasized that Mezo aims to transform Bitcoin holdings from idle assets to actively engaged assets within the network, rewarding users for contributing to network security. The funding for Mezo comes at a time when venture capitalists are expressing renewed interest in the crypto space.