July 22, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of High Stakes, Alex sits down with Brian Mahoney, VP of Business Development at Thesis and Founding Team Member at Mezo, to explore the next evolution of Bitcoin. From Bitcoin mortgages to stablecoins like MUSD, Brian shares why the future of on-chain finance is Bitcoin-native.
You will learn:
• Why Bitcoin-backed stablecoins are gaining momentum
• How Mezo is building a circular Bitcoin economy
• What makes Bitcoin staking possible (without Proof of Work)
• How global demand for Bitcoin financing is growing
• Why macro trends and regulation are creating massive tailwinds
• How institutions and retail investors are unlocking new Bitcoin use cases
If you care about the future of digital assets, real world use cases for crypto, and Bitcoin’s next decade, this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian (00:00):
We believe the world is increasingly moving on chain.
(00:02):
Just as you look at all theseother sectors around the world
beyond just finance, right?
There's been the digitizationof everything from our
media, even our healthcarewith telemedicine, right?
And finance is kind ofundergoing that right now.
MUSD is our flagshipproduct on top of Meso
that we built at thesis.
And the vision for MUSDis the Bitcoin mortgage.
(00:22):
So we have this sortof opportunity in the
market right now where.
You can enable or unlocka way for you to use your
Bitcoin in the real world.
Wow.
Alex (00:34):
Welcome to High Stakes, the podcast
committed to demystifyingthe institutional adoption
of blockchain technology.
I'm your host, Alex Naka,and today we're elevating
the Web3 discourse and atseries of conversations with
industry iconoclast that areshaping the future of Web3.
Now, let's get started.
(01:00):
Welcome back to anotherepisode of High Stakes.
I'm your host, Alex Naka,and today I'm joined by
Brian Mahoney, who is theVP of Business Development
at Thesis and also part ofthe founding team at Meso.
Welcome to the pod.
Brian.
Excited to be here.
Thanks for having me on ox.
So, Brian, it, it's always likeinteresting from our perspective
to talk to folks who have beenaround crypto for a long time.
(01:20):
You've been in it for manyyears because I think,
again, this just brings alot of perspective on how the
industry's grown, evolved,matured, that sort of thing.
So you've sort of beenin the crypto industry
for eight or so years.
Maybe tell the audiencea little bit about
your journey leading up
Brian (01:32):
to thesis.
And So I got intothe crypto space.
That's accurate.
2016. Uh, so then.
Sort of at the upper centerof what I call defi and CFI
for on chain and off chain,kind of that intersection.
So my goal and kind offocus has always been since
I've been in the space.
Unlocking and driving moredigitizing of assets and,
and unlocking on chain flow.
(01:54):
Prior to coming into the space,I was, uh, in the banking
world, so finance, tradifyguy, traditional finance guy,
turned defi DGen basically.
Um, I was at HSBC and Lazarprior to getting into crypto.
And then since I'vebeen in this space since
2016, have been really.
Focused on and kind of workingwith different defi and, and,
(02:15):
um, exchange based projectshave been thesis now for a
couple of years and we'velaunched, uh, a number of
projects during that time.
And, uh, yeah, we're, we'repretty big all in on Bitcoin
right now, so it's, it's anexciting time to be building
in and around Bitcoin.
Alex (02:28):
And then can you give folks a little bit
of a sense of like, what'sinside of that sort of like,
portfolio of things, right?
So, which includes kind of BTCand, and a variety of other
things, but maybe highlightsome of like the bigger things
that you guys are workingon inside of that portfolio
Brian (02:40):
umbrella.
So Thesis is a Bitcoinventure studio, and we
originally founded in 2014.
Uh, and usually what we do,it's, it's not a, uh, what
we mean by Venture Studio,it's not an incubator.
So we're not, you know,doing kind of this
like spray and pray.
Shipping and, and bringingout, you know, as many
projects as possible.
It's more deep convictionbets usually kind of one
to two projects a cycle.
(03:00):
We've launched about 10companies or projects
over that time period.
Some have been more kind oflike FinTech oriented, uh,
like one of our projects old,which was one of the first
projects we started with, theyjust went public on Nasdaq
actually earlier this year.
It's a Bitcoin rewards platformavailable in the US So you could
spend Bitcoin earn or spenddollars, earn Bitcoin cash back.
(03:20):
And then on the other sideof the spectrum, we've done
varying degrees of like tokenbased projects, mostly on chain,
some decentralized changes, uh,some wrapped asset products.
Some Bitcoin rewards projects.
And then, um, our latest and,and kind of biggest push most
recently is Mezo, which is a, aBitcoin side chain effort that
is focused on Bitcoin financing.
(03:41):
So unlocking in essence kindof vision is Bitcoin mortgages.
So everything we do, kindof the whole spectrum of
different projects is allabout unlocking real time and
real use cases for Bitcoinbeyond just the hot use case.
And, uh, aligning ourselvesas closely as possible to
the ethos of Bitcoin, whichis, you know, open source,
(04:01):
community first, everything astransparent as possible, all
on chain, that kind of thing.
Alex (04:05):
And can you talk a little bit about,
with Meso in particular?
Sure.
Were there sort of painpoints or like just sort of
pockets of opportunity thatled you all to founding Meso?
Yes.
And, and if
Brian (04:15):
so, what were those things?
Yeah, of course.
So for us it's been, I mean,Mezo was kind of the, the way
to bring, uh, the last 10 yearstogether and put a bow on it.
Because it's a, it's a, it'sa chain and underpins, you
know, most of our projectsprior to Meau and more kind
of app focused, whether itwas off chain or on chain.
And for us it just made sense tokind of tie it all together with
a, an underpinning of which ismezo, this chain ecosystem, that
(04:38):
it's kind of a connective tissuefor everything we've been doing.
And organically it justmade a lot of sense.
And, you know, thetiming was great as well.
'cause especially in thisspace, you know, timing is
everything when you're, whenyou're launching, you know,
especially trying to find thatever elusive product market fit.
Or protocol marketfit as we refer to it.
And so for us, therewas a pretty unique
window in the market.
We, we launched Mezoofficially, um, announced
(05:01):
last year in, in 2024, andbeen kind of working on it
now for close to two years.
And really there was a, a, akind of a tremendous opportunity
off the back of like theBitcoin ETF being approved,
ordinals and sort of this,this boomerang effect that,
you know, Bitcoin, NFTs orOrdinals had unlocked, which
is bringing developers and, andbuilders back to Bitcoin space.
(05:21):
And so, you know, launching achain and kind of connecting all
of our, our apps and ecosystempartners together, uh, just
made, you know, because ofthe most logical step for us
from a, a product standpoint.
Alex (05:31):
And this is, you know, probably a good place to talk
about Bitcoin's evolution asyou would describe it, right?
I think that there's avariety of different, you
know, viewpoints out there.
And depending onwhat, you know, set of
discourse you're in, it's.
Digital scarcity, store value.
Digital gold.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe describe for theaudience how you've seen
(05:53):
Bitcoin's evolution and howit's sort of evolved over time
in sort of the crypto context.
And then you can also tie thatin maybe with how does Meso fit
into that evolutionary journey?
Brian (06:05):
So really the primary use case for Bitcoin, you know,
since it was kind of came tothe world in, in 2008, over
the last 15 years has been.
What we kind of call thehobble use case or the
speculative use case.
Just, you know, buyit, hold hope the price
goes up, kind of thing.
There's then variousattempts at adding a
different utility around it.
For example, like lending in thedays of, you know, 2020 to 2022,
(06:27):
there was a big push for that.
Now a lot of these companiesthat were doing it.
Are no longer around andthey kind of had more
of like your traditionalbanking model incorporating
credit and ation into it.
Market appetite wasstrong for that.
But in terms of theinfrastructure and, and kind
of risk management side, Ithink there was some, you know,
opportunities for improvement.
And now you're sort of seeing,you know, these two worlds come
(06:49):
together with those productuse cases of unlocking, you
know, additional utility beyondthe speculative use case.
But, you know, doing it in away that's much more aligned
with Bitcoin kind of fundamentalvalues, which is, you know, open
source, democratizing accessfor, for wealth generation and
real kind of utility for yourmoney around the world and,
and not being subject to maybe,you know, governments or, or
(07:11):
third parties manipulating that.
So for us, bringing kind ofmeso into the fold made a lot
of sense because there wassort of this window of like.
In the past cycles, the usecases beyond, you know, the
speculative use, basicallyBitcoin, utility yield, et
cetera, had been proven, butthe models themselves were
not sustainable long term.
And, and we, we recognize thatthere's a pretty tremendous
(07:31):
opportunity right now,especially with regulatory
clarity happening in theus you know, with a procr
administration now in office.
There was some opportunityto kind of lean in, really
create a full stack on chainexperience that encompasses
the best of both worlds, catersto kind of that maxi mentality
or, or we like to call it theBitcoin stoic internally, but
(07:52):
just, you know, the peoplewho are in on Bitcoin and call
everything else a shitcoin.
That's sort of like one,one side of the spectrum.
Uh, and then on the other sideyou have, you know, people
just looking to, to grow theirwealth and, and maybe not as.
Deeply invested in like someof the principles behind
Bitcoin and decentralization.
We found kind of that, youknow, thread the needle on
both sides, where we can havea product that caters to those,
(08:13):
the stoics or the, the maxitype user, you know, people
who are pro-free and, andyou know, decentralization,
but also catering to theirneeds as a user, you know,
wanting to grow that wealth.
And, and on the same side,you know, any on, on the
other side, people who maybe.
Don't have as much of a, a focuson decentralization or open
source, but still want to growtheir wealth and use digital
(08:35):
assets as a vehicle to do that.
And so that's kind of the,the core north star of Meso
and all the rest of thethesis projects as well.
And then kind of taking thatone step further, building in,
you know, kind of core apps anduser interface ways for folks
to engage with these products.
Doing it in a way that'smuch more simplified and
kind of, you know, alignedwith that, like web two user
(08:56):
experience or, or what youwould find in like the Google
Play or, or Apple App store.
You know, the
Alex (09:01):
vision as, as I've sort of like digested
it, is really around thiscircular economy Yes.
Construct, um, at Mesoand really having that
circular economy powered by.
BTC.
Right.
By Bitcoin.
I'm just curious as, as youthink about why building
that circular economy isimportant for Bitcoin's
future, how would youdescribe that and specifically
on, on on that vector?
(09:22):
The
Brian (09:22):
Bitcoin circular economy is a sort of a high level
view, but certainly aligns wellwith how we're thinking about,
you know, the next decade of.
Of what Bitcoin lookslike and, and digital
assets more generally.
We believe the world isincreasingly moving on chain.
You know, just as if you lookat all these other sectors
around the world, you know,beyond just finance, right?
There's been the digitizationof everything, right?
(09:43):
From our media to our,uh, even our healthcare
with telemedicine, right?
And, and finance iskind of undergrown
undergoing that right now.
So if you believe in kind ofthe, you know, digitization of
everything, including assetsand financial products, if you
take that one step further.
Most of these sort of tailwindsare, and unlock for this
is, is happening on chainbecause that's, you know,
(10:04):
blockchains in, in my view,are kind of an upgrade from
the SWIFT network or the waytheir current financial Wall
Street system works to date.
And the banks themselves, Imean the SWIFT network was
created pre-internet, right?
And there's been sort of this,you know, FinTech interim
step where like the strikesof the world, the plaids of
the world are using kind ofthese analog rails, creating
(10:26):
kind of a 1.5 improvement.
Obviously they're, you know,they've done very well.
These companieshave done very well.
But if you continue toaccelerate that forward, what
does that world look like?
You know, in this generationthat's coming up, you know,
the Gen Z and, and even earlierthan that, people born in, in
this century are used to a worldof that's entirely natively
and mobile and tissue, right?
(10:46):
So if you kind of acceleratethese tailwinds and, and
think about, you know, whatdoes the future look like
5, 10, 20 years from now?
It's going to be a worldthat is, is, you know,
happening 24 7, 365.
All online is openly accessible,just like the internet is
to anyone in the world.
And blockchains are a key unlockfor that because at the end of
the day, they're just sort ofa giant coordination mechanism
(11:06):
and a, and a ledger that a.
Allows for, you know, much moreflexibility and use cases to be
built by anyone around the worldwho has an internet connection.
So it's an extremelypowerful force that, you
know, I definitely likenakin to the internet in
terms of that unlock.
And you know, the world runson, on money end the day, right?
We're all sort of living inthese capitalist societies.
And so if you.
(11:27):
Think about, you know, how doyou tap into that and really
kind of, you know, skate, Imean, I'm a hockey guy, skate
to where the puck is going.
Right?
I think the future looks likesomething that's a product
fully on chain has that sortof transparency and better
within that, that trust, youknow, incorporated uses a,
an experience where folks,you know, sometimes they
wouldn't even know that they'reinteracting with the blockchain.
(11:47):
Right.
And, and that's I thinkwhere we're sort of at
the next leg right now is.
How do you, you know, createthis great user experience
for folks, but do it in a waythat still sort of aligns with
their value set and the waythe tailwinds of the world are
going, uh, from a macro and,and microeconomic standpoint.
And so for, for Meso itself,you know, Bitcoin is the
biggest asset class in, interms of digital assets, right?
(12:09):
And it's continuing to grow.
Bitcoin dominance is at alltime highs in the market.
And you have this boomingeffect that happened last year,
especially in, in 2024, youknow, right around the having.
And, and before that, with.
This, you know, renew excitementfor developers coming in with
orals, for example, right?
As, as sort of a oneinflection point that brought
folks back into the space.
(12:29):
You have the happeningfolks looking for, and
mining companies lookingfor new revenue streams.
And you have theregulatory sort of tailwind
stack on top of that.
Clarity's finallycoming to this space.
And so, you know, I thinkyou're, we're at sort of a, a
new age for on chain products.
A way that, you know, we'll kindof weave and bring together the
web two and Web3 experiences.
(12:49):
So for us, we think whatthat looks like is a Bitcoin
financing platform or a placewhere that is a Bitcoin bank.
And kind of actually allude backto like Hal Finney's original
post, and I think there wassomething on a forum in 2010
about a Bitcoin bank, right?
So for us.
Kind of seeing that visionthrough, you know, really
creating a, a place that's afull loop, you know, ecosystem,
(13:10):
economy, experience all productand Bitcoin and then you can use
it actually in the real world.
And, you know, beyond just sortof that speculative use case,
Alex (13:18):
what's the response been from the Bitcoin community?
You, you've sort of hinted atthis, that there are, you know,
sort of different factionswithin the Bitcoin community.
Yeah, definitelydifferent, yeah.
Yeah, different, like verydifferent demographics, right?
Because you do have, youknow, sort of the purest
of the Maxxis, right?
That I think like the generousway of putting it are, uh,
(13:38):
would be that they're likequite skeptical of bringing
Defi concepts into Bitcoin.
So I'm curious like how yousee the different camps.
How they've sort ofreacted to Mezo and, and
what you all are doing.
I want to go to like forspecific concerns by the
Maxxis, how you guys havenavigated those concerns.
You know, from, fromthat perspective,
Brian (13:57):
there's not a perfect fit for all demographics and
types of customer, althoughwe're certainly doing our best
to kind appeal to them all.
And I think really itkind of comes down to.
I would call just, I, I sortof alluded to it earlier,
but pro protocol, marketfit, having sort of that
application use case that justmakes a lot of sense and you
know, whether you're a Maxior a Wall Street guy or a
retail, somewhere in between,there's not a lot of great
(14:18):
options right now out there.
If you pull Bitcoin and you'relooking to just grow your wealth
upon Bitcoin without taking sometremendous amounts of risks.
Or, you know, taking maybelike financial risk or
taking counterparty risk ontheir credit side or, or,
you know, potentially evenlike a black box, right?
Because a lot of the timeswhen you're using a centralized
venue, for example, or,or traditional model in
(14:39):
banks, is using this, thisconcept of re ification.
So that number you see on thescreen in your checking account
is technically an IOU, right?
When you get paid that interest.
And dollars or, or whateverasset you're using.
Most of the time it's, youknow, less so with like a
Coinbase, they're not doingas much ification, but in the
traditional kind of bankingmodel, they're lending out
(15:01):
your capital and paying youan interest rate for it.
Right?
And so I think, you know,that model works as long as
you have Ft I Insurance andyou're not going kind of beyond
that 250,000 mark in the us.
But if you are beyond that oryou're working with maybe a,
say a more mid-sized bank like.
So if on Valley Bank, forexample, which just, you
know, went down, uh, lastyear, I think there's, you
(15:21):
know, an opportunity tosort of improve that model
using, and that's what, youknow, blockchains enable.
So for us, you know, kind oftaking this blockchain based
use case and saying, Hey,we're not doing any rehab
application, no black boxes,no funny business going on.
You can follow the flow offunds at all times, which
is generally what these, themaxi or sort of like Bitcoin
Stellar crowd cares about.
You know, they, they wanna be,you know, it's kind of this
(15:42):
not your keys type, your coinmantra that they all follow.
So for us, you know, that'smaking sure that we're, we're
aligned as closely as possiblewith the Bitcoin ethos,
open source, decentralized,right, and fully transparent
in terms of where your, yourfunds and, and custody of
the assets are at all time.
Which, that's what theMeso chain enables.
It's a decentralized systemthat basically allows for
(16:05):
folks to follow their flowof funds at all time and tap
into the benefits of thesesort of web two based business
models, which you know is,for example, Bitcoin yield.
Or Bitcoin credit or lendingagainst, you know, your
capital, like a Bitcoinmortgage would be that, or
spending in the real worldpayments, these types of things.
So the meso chain itself is theinfrastructure that powers a lot
(16:27):
of these different applications.
And then we have anecosystem group of, of
projects we have about.
15 projects right now thatare deploying on meso at
various stages that tap intoall these different use cases.
And then we ourselves are alsobuilding, uh, our products
in-house that, uh, will targetdirectly to these users.
Alex (16:42):
Got it.
And just talking a little bitabout the, the infrastructure
and maybe like design.
What role does stakingplay in, in Mesos design?
And, you know, maybe talk alittle bit about, are there
any sort of unique incentivesor participation models for.
Validators users, developers,like how do you sort of
see, um, sort of the, theactual staking design playing
into, to mezzos overall
Brian (17:03):
design?
Yeah, it's a great question.
So for us, uh, one of thebig opportunities we see in
the space that has not beencracked yet is unlocking
what I sort of refer to asthe Bitcoin risk free rate.
You're sort of lowest risk,you know, most predictable.
Yield stream.
Right.
Which is kinda like your,you know, LIOR if you're,
if you're using Fed funds.
(17:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Um, or like kinda your,your baseline yield in
your checking account.
There's now really beena use case that has
unlocked this for Bitcoin.
'cause historically.
The yield has come fromsome sort of credit risk
or, or financial product.
There's not like just sortof a set it and forget
it type of, um, solution.
There's been movement in thelast, call it 18 months in
(17:44):
this category called bitcoinstaking, which is obviously not
happening on the Bitcoin L one,the main chain because you know,
it's a proof of work system.
Um, and you need a proof ofstake system to enable this.
So for us, you know, one of thethings we we've been looking
into is how do you sort of,you know, keep that the best
of proof of work, but alsoenable this, you know, sort of
(18:06):
baseline yield, risk-free rate,if you will, for Bitcoin and
using some of the, the designsfrom, from proof of mistake.
And so, um, meso itselfis a cosmos based chain.
Which allows us to sort ofmaximize and accelerate the
decentralization and opensourcing, kind of tap into the
benefits and also keep kindof that neutrality, right?
Because a lot of the timesbitcoins are, are, tend to
(18:27):
be allergic to, you know, anEBM or Ethereum based system.
Uh, so for us that's oneof the design decisions we
made is, you know, cosmosstack is much more neutral.
And Bitcoin aligned from a,an infrastructure standpoint.
But then on top we have awrapper that allows you to
plug into the liquidity andEBM systems where, which is
where a lot of this activityis happening, you know, in defi
(18:50):
and, and crypto in general.
And a lot of the innovation isoccurring on the financial side.
And so.
Kind of pairing these twomechanism designs together
or system designs together.
Cosmos infrastructure with anEBM kind of plugin allows us
to unlock kind of a, a way forfolks to stake their Bitcoin
on mezzo, which is why wehave this side chance set up.
So you can actually stakeyour Bitcoin on mezzo and earn
(19:12):
native Bitcoin rewards on that.
And the reason why we're able todo this or how, how do the yield
is or the rewards are generatedis from activity on the chain.
So people using the chainare spending in Bitcoin.
So the entire system isBitcoin all the way down.
There's no alternativetoken or, or anything like
that that you're spending.
So the gas asset, ifyou will, is Bitcoin.
(19:34):
And when you transact, you know,whether it's on a Defi app or
like a game or, you know, evenspending and, and you know,
we have a, the ability foryou to issue gift cards and,
and you use, you actually areBitcoin in the real world.
Um, you can, you know, shop, dothings in e-commerce right now.
Uh, so anytime someonedoes something in many
of those categories.
They're spending a little bitof Bitcoin and that goes to
(19:54):
the network that pays out tothe validators, as well as
anyone who's staking on thechain itself and wants to
participate in these economies.
Alex (20:02):
Wanna shift directions to MUSD, which is, you know,
Bitcoin backed stable coin.
So how does MUSD fit into Mesos?
Economic model?
How should the audiencethink about that?
Brian (20:13):
Yeah, so MUSD is our flagship product on top of mezzo
that we built, uh, at thesis.
And the vision for, for MUSDis the Bitcoin mortgage.
We have this sort of opportunityin the market right now where
you can enable or unlock.
A way for you to use yourBitcoin in the real world while
keeping and, and maintainingyour equity or your upside.
(20:35):
So, and that's one of thethings that, you know, I think
a lot of right now with, youknow, bitcoins hitting all
time highs in the market,lots of great tailwinds from
a regulatory and, and kindof institutional standpoint
coming into the space.
A lot of folks justwanna hold their bitcoin.
Hey, it, wouldn't it be niceif you could actually, you
know, keep holding your Bitcoinand also get some utility out
against it without taking muchcredit risk, if at all, right?
(20:57):
And so that's sort of the, the,the driving factor behind MUSD
and the, the spirit of that.
And so right now youcan actually pause
your Bitcoin on Meso.
Um, it's live on main net.
As a last week, uh, weannounced that Bitcoin Vegas
and, um, you can borrowagainst your Bitcoin in MUSD.
At 1% rates right now,so quite favorable.
(21:18):
And MUSD you can take and usein different applications on
meso as well as, uh, if youtake it off chain and use it
in, in a few select venues rightnow for shopping and kind of
e-commerce type experiences.
And, uh, as well as useit in, in broader gefi.
So, you know, the Ethereumecosystems, you know,
maybe we'll bring it toSolana SWE as as well.
(21:38):
Some other, um, ecosystemsthat are, are, are pretty
thriving right now.
But yeah, thinking about, youknow, kind of the core use
cases of MUSD, it's reallyunlocking spending payments
and then yield as well.
Alex (21:49):
And a lot of the folks that you know, listen in
would look at, you know.
Sort of stable coins and askthemselves, okay, great for
this given design, how do we,how does like a one-to-one
peg get maintained, sortof to the US dollar, uh,
in, in that regard, right?
If we just sort of liketake a, like a very big step
back and look at it fromlike 40,000 feet, you know.
Most people view Bitcoin, youknow, as a, as a pretty highly
(22:13):
volatile asset, um, relative toother things out there, like you
have treasuries and so forth.
What are the, like forcesat play, you know, for MUSD
in terms of keeping it asa stable peg one-to-one,
to the US dollar, and, andhow should the audience.
Brian (22:26):
Rationalize that.
So first off, MUSD is ahundred percent Bitcoin
back when you take it out.
So when you just, uh, theuser experiences when you
come to Mezo, you can open upthe MUSD application, which
is, you know, go, basicallyborrow is what you're doing
and deposit Bitcoin into acontract which is on the chain.
Um, so it's not being heldby a centralized custodian.
(22:48):
It's being held by the chainitself, which right now is
secured by 21 validators.
So in essence, it's adecentralized custodial
model for your Bitcoin.
Sits there on chain, so youcontrol the, the keys and, and
their custody of those assets.
You're putting an escrowon the chain, but you have
access to it at all times.
Then you can mint MUSD againstthat amount, up to 90% LTB.
(23:10):
So we think that's prettycompetitive in terms of
what the market allows.
We recommend probablymore like 50 to 60% just
to, you know, account forsome of that volatility.
But we certainly have folksthat are, you know, a little
more aggressive and maybethe risk appetite and are
going closer to 90%, uh,for their MUSD issuance.
When you issue MUSD, so just tobe clear, as the depositor, you
(23:31):
are also the borrower, okay?
So you are minting MUSD againstyour Bitcoin and that that
MUSD shows up in your accountand you can take that and go
do things with it on chain,earn yield, spend it, whatever
you wanna do, and you'relocking in that 1% interest
rate when you meant that.
So that won't say that forever,but right now, um, because
(23:52):
we, we just launched, we have,you know, a pretty aggressive
growth roadmap looking ahead.
And so we wanted to offeran extremely favorable and
competitive rate of folks,you know, for access to
this around the world.
And that 1% is paid to thenetwork and there's no tenor
or, or agreed payback period.
As long as you monitor yourposition and make sure that
you know, you are, you'remaintaining that collateral
(24:13):
ratio, uh, as agreed when youborrow against your Bitcoin
with this MESD contract.
There's no payback.
So it's sort of a, we're usingthis term buy now pay paid
backer kind of thing, whichis, you know, a little catchy.
But it is true.
'cause as long as you, you makesure that you're monitoring
your position and, and notget kind of liquidated or
anything like that in thetime of Bitcoin volatility,
you're able to have thisMUSD for as long as you want.
(24:35):
At that locked and fixed rate.
So it's not a variablesystem, it's, it's a fixed
percent that you're payingand that's, we found that
to be quite competitiveto folks in the market.
In terms of how, onceyou're holding MUSD and how
do you maintain that peg?
You know, there's a numberof factors that go into
this, but in general, MUSDis, is pegged to the dollar.
So it is equivalent to $1Collateralized by Bitcoin.
(24:56):
If your audience is familiarwith like D from Maker Dao,
for example, or there'sanother project out of
Switzerland called Liquidity.
There's sort of some, uh,some things that, uh, we were
inspired by our engineeringteam are inspired by from
those, uh, use system projectsof, of the last few years.
Is entirely aligned to Bitcoin.
So that's sort of thenew innovation here.
Like Die for example, youwere collateralizing with
(25:18):
Ethereum and, and you know,die is, and Maker DA is
one of the most successfuldefi projects of all time.
So pretty good sort of, uh,model I guess to, to sort of.
You know, follow, but bringit to Bitcoin and then, uh,
we also have quite a lot ofarbitrages and, and traders
and users coming in that helpmaintain that pack, right?
So, uh, it can be actuallyquite profitable for folks, uh,
(25:41):
especially if you're a tradingfirm or, you know, just a.
I have a defi user tocome in and, and help
maintain the system.
So in, in essence market,you know, opportunities
will also help enforceand, and maintain that peg.
Alex (25:54):
Obviously the stablecoin space is, you
know, sort of white hot.
We just, you know, had circlego, you know, public and, and
have a big pop on day one.
Very exciting inthe public markets.
Yeah, which is very exciting.
Um, I think overall and a, abig vote of confidence, right?
For, I think.
The industry and sortof the technology.
I'm curious, as you look atsort of the constellation that
is like the growing universeof like stable coins, what are
like the advantages of a Bitcoinbacked stable coin, like MUSD
(26:18):
compared to like the other, youknow, sort of stable coins that
are out there that are maybenon BTC backed as an example?
Brian (26:24):
I think right now, just in terms of the advantages
of MUSD versus others, thelandscape and opportunity
for Bitcoin back Bitcoinis completely wide open.
I, I know of about twoprojects right now, sort of
our indirect competitors.
To what we're doing.
So there's a, a prettytremendous opportunity right now
for the Bitcoin backed category.
You have an, you know, I thinkit's something like 90 plus
(26:45):
percent of stable coins issuedto date are dollar backed.
So that's an extremely uppedroute and competitive category
that USDT and, you know,tether and, and Circle USDC
have a, a strong hold onright now and we will have
fungibility with those assets.
So, you know, you can comeinto like a, let's say a
liquidity pool or, or exchange.
And swap in and out withUSDC, Tam SD and back, which
(27:08):
I is an important point and,and kind of that build that
market confidence around it.
So you'll always be able toget back to dollars, which is
a, you know, key unlock for,for growth and, and use cases.
But for us, you know, really,I would say we're almost kind
of competing more so withlike the Bitcoin lending.
Players, but you know, we're notdoing any lending or, or credit
on behalf of anyone, right?
(27:28):
It's, it's an entirelyself custodial and
user control journey.
And so that is a prettyappealing use case to a
lot of these differentdemographics and customer
types that we're working with.
And, and then you have the, youknow, the very competitive rate
to borrow against your bitcoin.
Which you know is, I meanfrankly it's, right now the
market rates just for contextare anywhere from five to
(27:49):
7% or even higher, right?
So cost of capital is ahuge differentiator for us.
And then, you know, kind ofmarrying up cost of capital,
so low cost of capital that wehave with, you know, some great
opportunities to earn rewards.
On the other side, it's apretty nice one, two punch that
we think this category of themarket or subcategory of the
stablecoin market, which isBitcoin backed stable coins.
(28:09):
Is going to significantly heatup here in the next 12 to 18
months, especially as Bitcoincontinues to, to proliferate.
Alex (28:14):
Just curious what metrics you personally look at to gauge
Mesos success at this stage.
And you know, again, also maybeuse this as an opportunity
to talk a little bit aboutthe go-to-market approach.
Sure.
That mezzo is takingsort of post main net for
Brian (28:30):
us.
The, the North star metric ison chain activity 'cause that's
how our users grow with us.
The more activity there is onchain, and by activity I really
mean transactions or volume.
Uhhuh and obviously uniqueusers also rate KPI.
There's kind of a Silicon Valleylike SaaS metric called C lt,
which is the cost of customeracquisition, CAC, uh, over the
lifetime value of the customer.
(28:52):
Um, so that's a, a metric wefollow very closely internally
and, you know, we'll bepublishing that as we, we get
bigger and kind of bring thisto market so that those are kind
of the, the north stars for us.
And then, you know, alsoon chain activity, a net
percentage of that is, is fees.
Right.
Because every time someone istransacting on the network,
they're paying a littlebit of gas or you know,
(29:13):
maybe paying that interestrate that we've covered.
And those all go back to,uh, future token holders and
stakeholders of the network.
And so the more we rewardand kind of grow with our
users on the community side,right, the more successful
this project will be.
And that creates a really niceflywheel, which is kind of
where that circular economy, youknow, bitcoin narrative comes
in that we use for mess up.
Alex (29:31):
Got it.
And then on the go to marketside, when you think about
what kinds of users orasset managers you're like.
Sort of thinking about in sortof the, this stage in terms
of both targeting and likebringing into the ecosystem,
like what are the ones thatyou feel, whether those are
demographics or otherwise thatyou think are most interesting?
Um, in terms of buildinglike, you know, additional
values, it relates tothat circular economy.
Brian (29:51):
So there's kind of two camps broadly.
One is institutional and theother is retail or individual.
So starting with institutional,outside, just like getting
yield on their, on theirassets or their balance sheet.
Cost to capital is anextremely, uh, sensitive topic.
Especially because rightnow, you know, there's still
a lot of these institutionsthemselves are, you know, this
is changing in the us Um, soI'm giving the US perspective,
(30:13):
but a lot of 'em are locked outof the traditional finance or
banking system still, right?
With operation choke coin,sort of the fallout of that
from the last administration,which, you know, is
definitely had happened.
There is, you know, uh, a lotof these, these institutions
have had to find creativeways for like working
capital, you know, basic.
Like things you would do ata commercial bank, working
capital or term loan financing,you know, uh, revolved credit
(30:35):
facilities, that sort of thing.
So for us, MUSDappeals to these, these
user groups because.
It's an extremely cost, a slowcost and, and cheap way to,
you know, get some debt againstyour underlying equity or, or
your Bitcoin balance sheet anddo it in a super effective way.
And then use it to like, youknow, pay down your bills or
offer it to your clients toget some yield on it and, and
maybe flip the spread on that.
(30:56):
Um, so we're seeing,uh, a significant amount
of inbound appetite.
Across all the different groups.
Could be custodians, could beexchanges, uh, could be, you
know, like an on-ramp payment.
On-ramp or, or kind of awhole host of different
groups in these categories.
Because a lot of folks,there's a lot of, you know.
Kind of overlappedhere, especially as
this space matures.
And then on the retail side,you know, one of the biggest
(31:17):
things is, um, unlocking and,and, you know, tapping into the
unbanked population, especiallyin like emerging markets.
You know, we've seen stablefunds take off and, and places
like latam for example, likeArgentina, parts of Asia where
there, you know, perpetuallyonline, um, the banking system
is a bit locked out of likethe traditional banking system.
(31:38):
So, you know, they'veobviously, uh.
Country banks and, andsome connectivity there.
But more and more folks like,you know, in places like Africa
for example, they just kind ofjump straight to mobile, right?
And they have this mobilebanking experience and
they're paying in cryptoand using stable coins in
these economies, right?
And, and a lot of that's USDTand USDC, but a lot of them are
also holding Bitcoin, right?
And so there's a prettyappealing use case to them
(32:00):
if you can allow them to.
Get some more capital againsttheir underlying cap or their
underlying Bitcoin, whichis, you know, for many of,
many of these folks, they'reholding Bitcoin already.
And so that really, thiskind of, where this 1%, you
know, low cost of financingcomes in place for them.
And then they can use itto, you know, open up and,
and purchase everyday itemsright at like an Amazon or
(32:21):
whatever the equivalent isin, in their local economy.
Uh, as well as, um, use it forultimately what we want on the
clock is, you know, a way forfolks to finance their homes.
They're cars.
Right.
Big purchases with yourMUSD and, and Bitcoin asset.
Alex (32:37):
And you kind of went there, I was gonna ask you
sort of how you view regionaladoption differences.
And it sounds like, you know,you've sort of broken it out
into there's, you know, sort ofthe unbanked, um, more emerging
markets sort of category.
But when you think about,just like, again, very high
level, how you would lookat sort of like the most
promising and advanced regionsas it relates to what you
all do at Mezo and, and what.
(32:57):
You know where the adoptionis gonna come from.
How would you sort of describethat in terms of how you would
break it down regionally?
Is it on that basis of.
It's kind of like the use caseof like underbanked versus
things that are maybe biggerpurchases that you would sort of
divide it on, or would it be ona different set of, of things?
Brian (33:12):
I mean, I think in general everyone's pretty
interested in the, the kindof, the 1% borrow against your
Bitcoin use case that appeals tomost groups regardless of what,
who are retail, institutional,or emerging or mature market.
And then it's really kind.
Tapping in and getting pluggedinto those rails and where
those users are alreadyinteracting with crypto.
So doing partnerships in thelocal regions depending on
(33:32):
kind of what makes sense.
So for us right now, likejust to give a quick flavor
of like our adoption so far,I mean we're, we, our team
is mostly US and so Westernbased US and and Europe.
A little bit of afootprint in Asia as well.
But Asia is actually, uh, oneof our top three markets as
well as the us and then latam.
We're also seeing a lot of, um,like South America, a lot of,
(33:54):
uh, emerging adoption there.
So those are kind of our threetarget zones right now, though
we're, we're going big on, andas we continue to mature and,
and grow the remaining of theyear, the remain of year, we'll
continue to narrow that downand, and really focus on, you
know, on the ground effortsthere for flourishing adoption.
Alex (34:09):
Maybe going to, you know, where this space sort of
meets, you know, the broader,um, set of constituencies
including government.
So let's talk a little bitabout like government and,
and sort of Bitcoin quickly.
What role do you seegovernments in central banks
playing sort of in the cryptospace in the coming years?
And I'm really most curiousabout examples like us
strategic Bitcoin reserveand sort of adoption and
(34:30):
regulation of, of stable coins.
Were really sort ofthe two topics we've
spent the most time on.
And so how do you seesort of, you know.
Governments and centralbanks playing a role, if
at all, in those domains?
Brian (34:39):
It's a great question.
Um, you know, I've, I'vebeen hoping for regulatory
clarity in the US since Igot into the space in 2016.
Uh, and I'll say the, thecrypto, you know, community
and operators in the space are,are very creative in terms of
finding workarounds and, and,uh, you know, the loopholes of,
of, you know, some of the gapsthat have existed in this space.
(35:01):
I mean, with the lastadministration under Biden,
there was definitely this like.
You know, regulation drivenefforts, but it was, uh, a lot
more adversarial in terms of theapproach, you know, come in and,
and pledge your, you know, workwith us kind of thing, but hey,
here's a slap on the wrist, or,or, you know, potentially even
worse jail time kind of thing.
So that, obviously thatapproach has not worked.
(35:23):
Um, and so it's nice to seesort of a, a different approach
now with the, with the newadministration in office and
how they're thinking about it.
Much more of a collaborativetype approach because for me
it's like this is an inevitable,you know, just like ai, right?
It's like the genie'soutta the bottle.
You can't put the genie back inas, as, when it comes to digital
assets in general, Bitcoin and,and just more generally crypto.
(35:44):
So it's, you may as wellfind a path through that, you
know, fits the, the currentmolds in previous molds of,
of, you know, like securitieslaw, et cetera, et cetera.
In terms of how the US hasbeen regulating and, and
monitoring financial markets.
Us and globally.
And so we're, we're prettyexcited about, uh, the
clarity that's coming out.
I think, and you can kind ofbreak it down into a number
(36:04):
of different categories, youknow, securities, commodities,
you know, governance tokens,stable coins that, you know,
front structured products.
Right.
And a lot of this stuff is.
The same flavor of the past, youknow, in kind of the pre crypto,
pre blockchain era, right?
There is also new things tobe incorporated into, right?
Because some governance tokenscertainly could be securities
and equity, but definitelynot all of 'em, right?
(36:24):
Because a lot of them, you know,have, uh, real utility and, and
use cases behind them beyondjust like this speculative
hold use case, right?
So.
Getting more granular.
I'd love to see, you know,the governments of the world
actually, you know, put inthe work to come up with real
regulation that encouragesinnovation and keeps, you know,
drive this, uh, this forward.
(36:45):
But doing it in a way that,you know, is a net benefit
for the overall ecosystemand doesn't, you know,
keep encouraging a lot of.
I think what maybe crypto'sstill kind of trying to shake
is the reputational image ofit's just filled with scammers
or, or that sort of thing,which there's definitely
those folks, but I think thatis behind us more generally.
It's been obviously a littlebit of a, a challenge of
(37:06):
the last five years kindof to shed that image.
But, you know, with kind ofWall Street going all in, you
know, the US president gettingin and launching literally
their own stable coin U SDone, it's turning a new leaf
and, and um, you know, reallyexcited to kind of see where.
Things evolve over the nextthree years with, uh, this
administration and how that, youknow, creates a nice competitive
effect globally because, youknow, usually when the US
(37:29):
moves, other countries kind offollow suit and rush to beat
them, and I think you're gonnahave kind of a nice, you know.
Competitive factor that overallbenefits this space at large
and, and creates a lot of nicetailwinds for capital inflows
and, and more innovationand ultimately benefiting
the end consumer, which is,you know, meeting them where
they are, which is online.
Awesome.
(37:49):
So
Alex (37:49):
second to last question here.
Um, as it relates tolike macro factors like
inflation interest rates,uh, how do you view those?
Impacting sort ofthe Bitcoin case.
Right.
And maybe to give some, likein my own thoughts around this,
I think you can look at, youknow, sort of the narrative of
Bitcoin as an inflation hedge.
(38:11):
Conversely, you've also seensort of a high correlation of
Bitcoin to like sort of techstock performance, which would
say it's more of a risk on assetand, and you know, so I'm just
sort of curious how you viewthe macroeconomic factors and
like which ones you think are.
Indicative or which ones do youthink are like really the ones
Brian (38:26):
to watch for?
I think a lot of people like totry to put, you know, bitcoin
and, you know, crypto assetsin, in like one category.
And I don't think it necessarilyfits cleanly into one category.
Certainly touches anumber of categories.
Probably the most sort ofhighly correlate I would say is.
And, and where I see Bitcoingoing is kind of being
like that digital goal.
Digital scarcity, youknow, scarce asset, right?
(38:49):
That definitely benefits withthe current money printing
going on and inflationgoing on with the US dollar.
So as the M two supply and,you know, that continues to, to
kick up and, and we have, it'sa pretty hot topic right now
and, and on Twitter if you're,or ex if you're following
that with Trump and Elon.
But, uh, in general, Ithink, you know, Bitcoin
(39:10):
has continued to reap thebenefits if the money printer
printing, money printingmachine is continuing to go.
As they say.
But on the flip side, you know,I think also it'll benefit even
if that does come down right,or or if the printing does stop,
because you know, I think again,as I said, the gene are the
bottle bottle with Bitcoin andit's kind of, that creates this
preservation of value effect,which a lot of countries and,
(39:32):
and you know, governments,uh, even states in the us,
Arizona, New Hampshire, Texas.
And then the Bitcointreasury play, which is a
whole nother sort of theMicroStrategy playbook, right?
You're seeing a huge tailwindaround this right now, and
there's a, you know, thatkind of all boils down to
this Bitcoin per share, right?
So if the equity ofMicroStrategy goes up,
you're effectively.
(39:53):
Getting more Bitcoin for yourdollar by buying that equity.
I think, um, that's a trendthat is going to continue, at
least for the next few quarters.
And yeah, I think ultimately notto give any price predictions,
but I think the market cap of,of digital assets and, you know,
Bitcoin with Bitcoin in a way isprobably gonna double from here,
if not continue to go further.
Alex (40:11):
So Brian, we ask all of our guests for their high
stakes hot take, um, which is,you know, their biggest and
boldest prediction for Web3.
Gotta jump down alittle bit there.
Maybe in your case, Bitcoin, um,for sort of the balance of 2025.
Um, and I, I would almostpress you on like, is there
something that you think,you know, big that you think
the market is, is missing?
Um, or that like, you know,people don't really fully have
(40:32):
their heads wrapped around.
Brian (40:33):
I think, yeah, well, I, I touched on it a little
bit with the sort of the microstrategy or, or strategy now
playbook and what's happeningwith the public equities
market and taking advantageof Bitcoin tailwinds there.
I think one thing that'sinteresting about that is,
you know, defi and cryptois, is quite complex, right?
So to use your, yourBitcoin right now.
You gotta set up a walletand, and do all these
(40:54):
different things, whichthat I think is improving.
That's definitely something,a trend I'm watching and
you know, is how do weimprove the user experience
overall for people wantingto interact with with crypto.
And that's happening.
Real time, like right now,you know, Stripe for example,
acquiring Bridge and kindof going in all in on stable
coins, you know, a lot of thebig payments companies, visa,
et cetera, incorporating it.
Uber's now starting toincorporate it as of yesterday.
(41:16):
Stablecoin paymentsand that optionality a
stake and shake, right?
So those are, you know,pretty significant.
Although the user adoptionis still getting there,
but like just the factthat these companies are
embracing it and unlocking.
And improving that userexperience and just making
it kind of a, you know,boring, everyday asset.
I think that's really a keything that needs to happen
for, you know, crypto this, youknow, ultra mainstream product.
(41:40):
But on the flip side, what'sinteresting with the, the
treasury plays of the strategyplaybooks and, and the Bitcoin
treasury companies is, youknow, there's a. One of the
things that they're doing iskind of indirectly unlocking
user experience and, andways to acquire Bitcoin.
So it's like you're alreadybuying stocks, right?
And you don't have to godownload the Coinbase account
or, or you know, open upa, a wallet and instead you
(42:02):
can just keep your CharlesSchwab, you know, brokerage
account or your financialadvisor and get some indirect
Bitcoin exposure that way.
And, uh, you know,it's a super easy way.
You don't have to thinkabout it that much.
That's removing a lot of thosebottlenecks for people who have
maybe it and historically lockedout by complexity or just,
you know, couldn't be botheredto learn or new technology.
And, um, I think that's a trendthat is, can continue, continue
(42:24):
on, and really accelerate here.
And then ideally thesetwo worlds converge.
We're not even separatingcrypto and, you know, equities
or commodities at this point.
It's just all sortof in one thing.
Right.
And that's where I, you know,sort of see this space going.
Alex (42:38):
Awesome.
Well, we'll haveto park it there.
Brian Mahoney, uh,visas and Mezo.
Um, thanks for coming on, Brian.
Look forward to havingyou on again soon.
Thanks, Jeremy.
Keep exploring andkeep innovating.
Learn more@validationcloud.ioand follow us on X and LinkedIn
to stay connected as we continueto shape Web3 for institutions.
(42:59):
This is high stakes withAlex Naka signing on.
We believe the world is increasingly moving on chain.
(00:02):
Just as you look at all theseother sectors around the world
beyond just finance, right?
There's been the digitizationof everything from our
media, even our healthcarewith telemedicine, right?
And finance is kind ofundergoing that right now.
MUSD is our flagshipproduct on top of Meso
that we built at thesis.
And the vision for MUSDis the Bitcoin mortgage.
(00:22):
So we have this sortof opportunity in the
market right now where.
You can enable or unlocka way for you to use your
Bitcoin in the real world.
Wow.
Alex (00:34):
Welcome to High Stakes, the podcast
committed to demystifyingthe institutional adoption
of blockchain technology.
I'm your host, Alex Naka,and today we're elevating
the Web3 discourse and atseries of conversations with
industry iconoclast that areshaping the future of Web3.
Now, let's get started.
(01:00):
Welcome back to anotherepisode of High Stakes.
I'm your host, Alex Naka,and today I'm joined by
Brian Mahoney, who is theVP of Business Development
at Thesis and also part ofthe founding team at Meso.
Welcome to the pod.
Brian.
Excited to be here.
Thanks for having me on ox.
So, Brian, it, it's always likeinteresting from our perspective
to talk to folks who have beenaround crypto for a long time.
(01:20):
You've been in it for manyyears because I think,
again, this just brings alot of perspective on how the
industry's grown, evolved,matured, that sort of thing.
So you've sort of beenin the crypto industry
for eight or so years.
Maybe tell the audiencea little bit about
your journey leading up
Brian (01:32):
to thesis.
And So I got intothe crypto space.
That's accurate.
2016. Uh, so then.
Sort of at the upper centerof what I call defi and CFI
for on chain and off chain,kind of that intersection.
So my goal and kind offocus has always been since
I've been in the space.
Unlocking and driving moredigitizing of assets and,
and unlocking on chain flow.
(01:54):
Prior to coming into the space,I was, uh, in the banking
world, so finance, tradifyguy, traditional finance guy,
turned defi DGen basically.
Um, I was at HSBC and Lazarprior to getting into crypto.
And then since I'vebeen in this space since
2016, have been really.
Focused on and kind of workingwith different defi and, and,
(02:15):
um, exchange based projectshave been thesis now for a
couple of years and we'velaunched, uh, a number of
projects during that time.
And, uh, yeah, we're, we'repretty big all in on Bitcoin
right now, so it's, it's anexciting time to be building
in and around Bitcoin.
Alex (02:28):
And then can you give folks a little bit
of a sense of like, what'sinside of that sort of like,
portfolio of things, right?
So, which includes kind of BTCand, and a variety of other
things, but maybe highlightsome of like the bigger things
that you guys are workingon inside of that portfolio
Brian (02:40):
umbrella.
So Thesis is a Bitcoinventure studio, and we
originally founded in 2014.
Uh, and usually what we do,it's, it's not a, uh, what
we mean by Venture Studio,it's not an incubator.
So we're not, you know,doing kind of this
like spray and pray.
Shipping and, and bringingout, you know, as many
projects as possible.
It's more deep convictionbets usually kind of one
to two projects a cycle.
(03:00):
We've launched about 10companies or projects
over that time period.
Some have been more kind oflike FinTech oriented, uh,
like one of our projects old,which was one of the first
projects we started with, theyjust went public on Nasdaq
actually earlier this year.
It's a Bitcoin rewards platformavailable in the US So you could
spend Bitcoin earn or spenddollars, earn Bitcoin cash back.
(03:20):
And then on the other sideof the spectrum, we've done
varying degrees of like tokenbased projects, mostly on chain,
some decentralized changes, uh,some wrapped asset products.
Some Bitcoin rewards projects.
And then, um, our latest and,and kind of biggest push most
recently is Mezo, which is a, aBitcoin side chain effort that
is focused on Bitcoin financing.
(03:41):
So unlocking in essence kindof vision is Bitcoin mortgages.
So everything we do, kindof the whole spectrum of
different projects is allabout unlocking real time and
real use cases for Bitcoinbeyond just the hot use case.
And, uh, aligning ourselvesas closely as possible to
the ethos of Bitcoin, whichis, you know, open source,
(04:01):
community first, everything astransparent as possible, all
on chain, that kind of thing.
Alex (04:05):
And can you talk a little bit about,
with Meso in particular?
Sure.
Were there sort of painpoints or like just sort of
pockets of opportunity thatled you all to founding Meso?
Yes.
And, and if
Brian (04:15):
so, what were those things?
Yeah, of course.
So for us it's been, I mean,Mezo was kind of the, the way
to bring, uh, the last 10 yearstogether and put a bow on it.
Because it's a, it's a, it'sa chain and underpins, you
know, most of our projectsprior to Meau and more kind
of app focused, whether itwas off chain or on chain.
And for us it just made sense tokind of tie it all together with
a, an underpinning of which ismezo, this chain ecosystem, that
(04:38):
it's kind of a connective tissuefor everything we've been doing.
And organically it justmade a lot of sense.
And, you know, thetiming was great as well.
'cause especially in thisspace, you know, timing is
everything when you're, whenyou're launching, you know,
especially trying to find thatever elusive product market fit.
Or protocol marketfit as we refer to it.
And so for us, therewas a pretty unique
window in the market.
We, we launched Mezoofficially, um, announced
(05:01):
last year in, in 2024, andbeen kind of working on it
now for close to two years.
And really there was a, a, akind of a tremendous opportunity
off the back of like theBitcoin ETF being approved,
ordinals and sort of this,this boomerang effect that,
you know, Bitcoin, NFTs orOrdinals had unlocked, which
is bringing developers and, andbuilders back to Bitcoin space.
(05:21):
And so, you know, launching achain and kind of connecting all
of our, our apps and ecosystempartners together, uh, just
made, you know, because ofthe most logical step for us
from a, a product standpoint.
Alex (05:31):
And this is, you know, probably a good place to talk
about Bitcoin's evolution asyou would describe it, right?
I think that there's avariety of different, you
know, viewpoints out there.
And depending onwhat, you know, set of
discourse you're in, it's.
Digital scarcity, store value.
Digital gold.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe describe for theaudience how you've seen
(05:53):
Bitcoin's evolution and howit's sort of evolved over time
in sort of the crypto context.
And then you can also tie thatin maybe with how does Meso fit
into that evolutionary journey?
Brian (06:05):
So really the primary use case for Bitcoin, you know,
since it was kind of came tothe world in, in 2008, over
the last 15 years has been.
What we kind of call thehobble use case or the
speculative use case.
Just, you know, buyit, hold hope the price
goes up, kind of thing.
There's then variousattempts at adding a
different utility around it.
For example, like lending in thedays of, you know, 2020 to 2022,
(06:27):
there was a big push for that.
Now a lot of these companiesthat were doing it.
Are no longer around andthey kind of had more
of like your traditionalbanking model incorporating
credit and ation into it.
Market appetite wasstrong for that.
But in terms of theinfrastructure and, and kind
of risk management side, Ithink there was some, you know,
opportunities for improvement.
And now you're sort of seeing,you know, these two worlds come
(06:49):
together with those productuse cases of unlocking, you
know, additional utility beyondthe speculative use case.
But, you know, doing it in away that's much more aligned
with Bitcoin kind of fundamentalvalues, which is, you know, open
source, democratizing accessfor, for wealth generation and
real kind of utility for yourmoney around the world and,
and not being subject to maybe,you know, governments or, or
(07:11):
third parties manipulating that.
So for us, bringing kind ofmeso into the fold made a lot
of sense because there wassort of this window of like.
In the past cycles, the usecases beyond, you know, the
speculative use, basicallyBitcoin, utility yield, et
cetera, had been proven, butthe models themselves were
not sustainable long term.
And, and we, we recognize thatthere's a pretty tremendous
(07:31):
opportunity right now,especially with regulatory
clarity happening in theus you know, with a procr
administration now in office.
There was some opportunityto kind of lean in, really
create a full stack on chainexperience that encompasses
the best of both worlds, catersto kind of that maxi mentality
or, or we like to call it theBitcoin stoic internally, but
(07:52):
just, you know, the peoplewho are in on Bitcoin and call
everything else a shitcoin.
That's sort of like one,one side of the spectrum.
Uh, and then on the other sideyou have, you know, people
just looking to, to grow theirwealth and, and maybe not as.
Deeply invested in like someof the principles behind
Bitcoin and decentralization.
We found kind of that, youknow, thread the needle on
both sides, where we can havea product that caters to those,
(08:13):
the stoics or the, the maxitype user, you know, people
who are pro-free and, andyou know, decentralization,
but also catering to theirneeds as a user, you know,
wanting to grow that wealth.
And, and on the same side,you know, any on, on the
other side, people who maybe.
Don't have as much of a, a focuson decentralization or open
source, but still want to growtheir wealth and use digital
(08:35):
assets as a vehicle to do that.
And so that's kind of the,the core north star of Meso
and all the rest of thethesis projects as well.
And then kind of taking thatone step further, building in,
you know, kind of core apps anduser interface ways for folks
to engage with these products.
Doing it in a way that'smuch more simplified and
kind of, you know, alignedwith that, like web two user
(08:56):
experience or, or what youwould find in like the Google
Play or, or Apple App store.
You know, the
Alex (09:01):
vision as, as I've sort of like digested
it, is really around thiscircular economy Yes.
Construct, um, at Mesoand really having that
circular economy powered by.
BTC.
Right.
By Bitcoin.
I'm just curious as, as youthink about why building
that circular economy isimportant for Bitcoin's
future, how would youdescribe that and specifically
on, on on that vector?
(09:22):
The
Brian (09:22):
Bitcoin circular economy is a sort of a high level
view, but certainly aligns wellwith how we're thinking about,
you know, the next decade of.
Of what Bitcoin lookslike and, and digital
assets more generally.
We believe the world isincreasingly moving on chain.
You know, just as if you lookat all these other sectors
around the world, you know,beyond just finance, right?
There's been the digitizationof everything, right?
(09:43):
From our media to our,uh, even our healthcare
with telemedicine, right?
And, and finance iskind of undergrown
undergoing that right now.
So if you believe in kind ofthe, you know, digitization of
everything, including assetsand financial products, if you
take that one step further.
Most of these sort of tailwindsare, and unlock for this
is, is happening on chainbecause that's, you know,
(10:04):
blockchains in, in my view,are kind of an upgrade from
the SWIFT network or the waytheir current financial Wall
Street system works to date.
And the banks themselves, Imean the SWIFT network was
created pre-internet, right?
And there's been sort of this,you know, FinTech interim
step where like the strikesof the world, the plaids of
the world are using kind ofthese analog rails, creating
(10:26):
kind of a 1.5 improvement.
Obviously they're, you know,they've done very well.
These companieshave done very well.
But if you continue toaccelerate that forward, what
does that world look like?
You know, in this generationthat's coming up, you know,
the Gen Z and, and even earlierthan that, people born in, in
this century are used to a worldof that's entirely natively
and mobile and tissue, right?
(10:46):
So if you kind of acceleratethese tailwinds and, and
think about, you know, whatdoes the future look like
5, 10, 20 years from now?
It's going to be a worldthat is, is, you know,
happening 24 7, 365.
All online is openly accessible,just like the internet is
to anyone in the world.
And blockchains are a key unlockfor that because at the end of
the day, they're just sort ofa giant coordination mechanism
(11:06):
and a, and a ledger that a.
Allows for, you know, much moreflexibility and use cases to be
built by anyone around the worldwho has an internet connection.
So it's an extremelypowerful force that, you
know, I definitely likenakin to the internet in
terms of that unlock.
And you know, the world runson, on money end the day, right?
We're all sort of living inthese capitalist societies.
And so if you.
(11:27):
Think about, you know, how doyou tap into that and really
kind of, you know, skate, Imean, I'm a hockey guy, skate
to where the puck is going.
Right?
I think the future looks likesomething that's a product
fully on chain has that sortof transparency and better
within that, that trust, youknow, incorporated uses a,
an experience where folks,you know, sometimes they
wouldn't even know that they'reinteracting with the blockchain.
(11:47):
Right.
And, and that's I thinkwhere we're sort of at
the next leg right now is.
How do you, you know, createthis great user experience
for folks, but do it in a waythat still sort of aligns with
their value set and the waythe tailwinds of the world are
going, uh, from a macro and,and microeconomic standpoint.
And so for, for Meso itself,you know, Bitcoin is the
biggest asset class in, interms of digital assets, right?
(12:09):
And it's continuing to grow.
Bitcoin dominance is at alltime highs in the market.
And you have this boomingeffect that happened last year,
especially in, in 2024, youknow, right around the having.
And, and before that, with.
This, you know, renew excitementfor developers coming in with
orals, for example, right?
As, as sort of a oneinflection point that brought
folks back into the space.
(12:29):
You have the happeningfolks looking for, and
mining companies lookingfor new revenue streams.
And you have theregulatory sort of tailwind
stack on top of that.
Clarity's finallycoming to this space.
And so, you know, I thinkyou're, we're at sort of a, a
new age for on chain products.
A way that, you know, we'll kindof weave and bring together the
web two and Web3 experiences.
(12:49):
So for us, we think whatthat looks like is a Bitcoin
financing platform or a placewhere that is a Bitcoin bank.
And kind of actually allude backto like Hal Finney's original
post, and I think there wassomething on a forum in 2010
about a Bitcoin bank, right?
So for us.
Kind of seeing that visionthrough, you know, really
creating a, a place that's afull loop, you know, ecosystem,
(13:10):
economy, experience all productand Bitcoin and then you can use
it actually in the real world.
And, you know, beyond just sortof that speculative use case,
Alex (13:18):
what's the response been from the Bitcoin community?
You, you've sort of hinted atthis, that there are, you know,
sort of different factionswithin the Bitcoin community.
Yeah, definitelydifferent, yeah.
Yeah, different, like verydifferent demographics, right?
Because you do have, youknow, sort of the purest
of the Maxxis, right?
That I think like the generousway of putting it are, uh,
(13:38):
would be that they're likequite skeptical of bringing
Defi concepts into Bitcoin.
So I'm curious like how yousee the different camps.
How they've sort ofreacted to Mezo and, and
what you all are doing.
I want to go to like forspecific concerns by the
Maxxis, how you guys havenavigated those concerns.
You know, from, fromthat perspective,
Brian (13:57):
there's not a perfect fit for all demographics and
types of customer, althoughwe're certainly doing our best
to kind appeal to them all.
And I think really itkind of comes down to.
I would call just, I, I sortof alluded to it earlier,
but pro protocol, marketfit, having sort of that
application use case that justmakes a lot of sense and you
know, whether you're a Maxior a Wall Street guy or a
retail, somewhere in between,there's not a lot of great
(14:18):
options right now out there.
If you pull Bitcoin and you'relooking to just grow your wealth
upon Bitcoin without taking sometremendous amounts of risks.
Or, you know, taking maybelike financial risk or
taking counterparty risk ontheir credit side or, or,
you know, potentially evenlike a black box, right?
Because a lot of the timeswhen you're using a centralized
venue, for example, or,or traditional model in
(14:39):
banks, is using this, thisconcept of re ification.
So that number you see on thescreen in your checking account
is technically an IOU, right?
When you get paid that interest.
And dollars or, or whateverasset you're using.
Most of the time it's, youknow, less so with like a
Coinbase, they're not doingas much ification, but in the
traditional kind of bankingmodel, they're lending out
(15:01):
your capital and paying youan interest rate for it.
Right?
And so I think, you know,that model works as long as
you have Ft I Insurance andyou're not going kind of beyond
that 250,000 mark in the us.
But if you are beyond that oryou're working with maybe a,
say a more mid-sized bank like.
So if on Valley Bank, forexample, which just, you
know, went down, uh, lastyear, I think there's, you
(15:21):
know, an opportunity tosort of improve that model
using, and that's what, youknow, blockchains enable.
So for us, you know, kind oftaking this blockchain based
use case and saying, Hey,we're not doing any rehab
application, no black boxes,no funny business going on.
You can follow the flow offunds at all times, which
is generally what these, themaxi or sort of like Bitcoin
Stellar crowd cares about.
You know, they, they wanna be,you know, it's kind of this
(15:42):
not your keys type, your coinmantra that they all follow.
So for us, you know, that'smaking sure that we're, we're
aligned as closely as possiblewith the Bitcoin ethos,
open source, decentralized,right, and fully transparent
in terms of where your, yourfunds and, and custody of
the assets are at all time.
Which, that's what theMeso chain enables.
It's a decentralized systemthat basically allows for
(16:05):
folks to follow their flowof funds at all time and tap
into the benefits of thesesort of web two based business
models, which you know is,for example, Bitcoin yield.
Or Bitcoin credit or lendingagainst, you know, your
capital, like a Bitcoinmortgage would be that, or
spending in the real worldpayments, these types of things.
So the meso chain itself is theinfrastructure that powers a lot
(16:27):
of these different applications.
And then we have anecosystem group of, of
projects we have about.
15 projects right now thatare deploying on meso at
various stages that tap intoall these different use cases.
And then we ourselves are alsobuilding, uh, our products
in-house that, uh, will targetdirectly to these users.
Alex (16:42):
Got it.
And just talking a little bitabout the, the infrastructure
and maybe like design.
What role does stakingplay in, in Mesos design?
And, you know, maybe talk alittle bit about, are there
any sort of unique incentivesor participation models for.
Validators users, developers,like how do you sort of
see, um, sort of the, theactual staking design playing
into, to mezzos overall
Brian (17:03):
design?
Yeah, it's a great question.
So for us, uh, one of thebig opportunities we see in
the space that has not beencracked yet is unlocking
what I sort of refer to asthe Bitcoin risk free rate.
You're sort of lowest risk,you know, most predictable.
Yield stream.
Right.
Which is kinda like your,you know, LIOR if you're,
if you're using Fed funds.
(17:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Um, or like kinda your,your baseline yield in
your checking account.
There's now really beena use case that has
unlocked this for Bitcoin.
'cause historically.
The yield has come fromsome sort of credit risk
or, or financial product.
There's not like just sortof a set it and forget
it type of, um, solution.
There's been movement in thelast, call it 18 months in
(17:44):
this category called bitcoinstaking, which is obviously not
happening on the Bitcoin L one,the main chain because you know,
it's a proof of work system.
Um, and you need a proof ofstake system to enable this.
So for us, you know, one of thethings we we've been looking
into is how do you sort of,you know, keep that the best
of proof of work, but alsoenable this, you know, sort of
(18:06):
baseline yield, risk-free rate,if you will, for Bitcoin and
using some of the, the designsfrom, from proof of mistake.
And so, um, meso itselfis a cosmos based chain.
Which allows us to sort ofmaximize and accelerate the
decentralization and opensourcing, kind of tap into the
benefits and also keep kindof that neutrality, right?
Because a lot of the timesbitcoins are, are, tend to
(18:27):
be allergic to, you know, anEBM or Ethereum based system.
Uh, so for us that's oneof the design decisions we
made is, you know, cosmosstack is much more neutral.
And Bitcoin aligned from a,an infrastructure standpoint.
But then on top we have awrapper that allows you to
plug into the liquidity andEBM systems where, which is
where a lot of this activityis happening, you know, in defi
(18:50):
and, and crypto in general.
And a lot of the innovation isoccurring on the financial side.
And so.
Kind of pairing these twomechanism designs together
or system designs together.
Cosmos infrastructure with anEBM kind of plugin allows us
to unlock kind of a, a way forfolks to stake their Bitcoin
on mezzo, which is why wehave this side chance set up.
So you can actually stakeyour Bitcoin on mezzo and earn
(19:12):
native Bitcoin rewards on that.
And the reason why we're able todo this or how, how do the yield
is or the rewards are generatedis from activity on the chain.
So people using the chainare spending in Bitcoin.
So the entire system isBitcoin all the way down.
There's no alternativetoken or, or anything like
that that you're spending.
So the gas asset, ifyou will, is Bitcoin.
(19:34):
And when you transact, you know,whether it's on a Defi app or
like a game or, you know, evenspending and, and you know,
we have a, the ability foryou to issue gift cards and,
and you use, you actually areBitcoin in the real world.
Um, you can, you know, shop, dothings in e-commerce right now.
Uh, so anytime someonedoes something in many
of those categories.
They're spending a little bitof Bitcoin and that goes to
(19:54):
the network that pays out tothe validators, as well as
anyone who's staking on thechain itself and wants to
participate in these economies.
Alex (20:02):
Wanna shift directions to MUSD, which is, you know,
Bitcoin backed stable coin.
So how does MUSD fit into Mesos?
Economic model?
How should the audiencethink about that?
Brian (20:13):
Yeah, so MUSD is our flagship product on top of mezzo
that we built, uh, at thesis.
And the vision for, for MUSDis the Bitcoin mortgage.
We have this sort of opportunityin the market right now where
you can enable or unlock.
A way for you to use yourBitcoin in the real world while
keeping and, and maintainingyour equity or your upside.
(20:35):
So, and that's one of thethings that, you know, I think
a lot of right now with, youknow, bitcoins hitting all
time highs in the market,lots of great tailwinds from
a regulatory and, and kindof institutional standpoint
coming into the space.
A lot of folks justwanna hold their bitcoin.
Hey, it, wouldn't it be niceif you could actually, you
know, keep holding your Bitcoinand also get some utility out
against it without taking muchcredit risk, if at all, right?
(20:57):
And so that's sort of the, the,the driving factor behind MUSD
and the, the spirit of that.
And so right now youcan actually pause
your Bitcoin on Meso.
Um, it's live on main net.
As a last week, uh, weannounced that Bitcoin Vegas
and, um, you can borrowagainst your Bitcoin in MUSD.
At 1% rates right now,so quite favorable.
(21:18):
And MUSD you can take and usein different applications on
meso as well as, uh, if youtake it off chain and use it
in, in a few select venues rightnow for shopping and kind of
e-commerce type experiences.
And, uh, as well as useit in, in broader gefi.
So, you know, the Ethereumecosystems, you know,
maybe we'll bring it toSolana SWE as as well.
(21:38):
Some other, um, ecosystemsthat are, are, are pretty
thriving right now.
But yeah, thinking about, youknow, kind of the core use
cases of MUSD, it's reallyunlocking spending payments
and then yield as well.
Alex (21:49):
And a lot of the folks that you know, listen in
would look at, you know.
Sort of stable coins and askthemselves, okay, great for
this given design, how do we,how does like a one-to-one
peg get maintained, sortof to the US dollar, uh,
in, in that regard, right?
If we just sort of liketake a, like a very big step
back and look at it fromlike 40,000 feet, you know.
Most people view Bitcoin, youknow, as a, as a pretty highly
(22:13):
volatile asset, um, relative toother things out there, like you
have treasuries and so forth.
What are the, like forcesat play, you know, for MUSD
in terms of keeping it asa stable peg one-to-one,
to the US dollar, and, andhow should the audience.
Brian (22:26):
Rationalize that.
So first off, MUSD is ahundred percent Bitcoin
back when you take it out.
So when you just, uh, theuser experiences when you
come to Mezo, you can open upthe MUSD application, which
is, you know, go, basicallyborrow is what you're doing
and deposit Bitcoin into acontract which is on the chain.
Um, so it's not being heldby a centralized custodian.
(22:48):
It's being held by the chainitself, which right now is
secured by 21 validators.
So in essence, it's adecentralized custodial
model for your Bitcoin.
Sits there on chain, so youcontrol the, the keys and, and
their custody of those assets.
You're putting an escrowon the chain, but you have
access to it at all times.
Then you can mint MUSD againstthat amount, up to 90% LTB.
(23:10):
So we think that's prettycompetitive in terms of
what the market allows.
We recommend probablymore like 50 to 60% just
to, you know, account forsome of that volatility.
But we certainly have folksthat are, you know, a little
more aggressive and maybethe risk appetite and are
going closer to 90%, uh,for their MUSD issuance.
When you issue MUSD, so just tobe clear, as the depositor, you
(23:31):
are also the borrower, okay?
So you are minting MUSD againstyour Bitcoin and that that
MUSD shows up in your accountand you can take that and go
do things with it on chain,earn yield, spend it, whatever
you wanna do, and you'relocking in that 1% interest
rate when you meant that.
So that won't say that forever,but right now, um, because
(23:52):
we, we just launched, we have,you know, a pretty aggressive
growth roadmap looking ahead.
And so we wanted to offeran extremely favorable and
competitive rate of folks,you know, for access to
this around the world.
And that 1% is paid to thenetwork and there's no tenor
or, or agreed payback period.
As long as you monitor yourposition and make sure that
you know, you are, you'remaintaining that collateral
(24:13):
ratio, uh, as agreed when youborrow against your Bitcoin
with this MESD contract.
There's no payback.
So it's sort of a, we're usingthis term buy now pay paid
backer kind of thing, whichis, you know, a little catchy.
But it is true.
'cause as long as you, you makesure that you're monitoring
your position and, and notget kind of liquidated or
anything like that in thetime of Bitcoin volatility,
you're able to have thisMUSD for as long as you want.
(24:35):
At that locked and fixed rate.
So it's not a variablesystem, it's, it's a fixed
percent that you're payingand that's, we found that
to be quite competitiveto folks in the market.
In terms of how, onceyou're holding MUSD and how
do you maintain that peg?
You know, there's a numberof factors that go into
this, but in general, MUSDis, is pegged to the dollar.
So it is equivalent to $1Collateralized by Bitcoin.
(24:56):
If your audience is familiarwith like D from Maker Dao,
for example, or there'sanother project out of
Switzerland called Liquidity.
There's sort of some, uh,some things that, uh, we were
inspired by our engineeringteam are inspired by from
those, uh, use system projectsof, of the last few years.
Is entirely aligned to Bitcoin.
So that's sort of thenew innovation here.
Like Die for example, youwere collateralizing with
(25:18):
Ethereum and, and you know,die is, and Maker DA is
one of the most successfuldefi projects of all time.
So pretty good sort of, uh,model I guess to, to sort of.
You know, follow, but bringit to Bitcoin and then, uh,
we also have quite a lot ofarbitrages and, and traders
and users coming in that helpmaintain that pack, right?
So, uh, it can be actuallyquite profitable for folks, uh,
(25:41):
especially if you're a tradingfirm or, you know, just a.
I have a defi user tocome in and, and help
maintain the system.
So in, in essence market,you know, opportunities
will also help enforceand, and maintain that peg.
Alex (25:54):
Obviously the stablecoin space is, you
know, sort of white hot.
We just, you know, had circlego, you know, public and, and
have a big pop on day one.
Very exciting inthe public markets.
Yeah, which is very exciting.
Um, I think overall and a, abig vote of confidence, right?
For, I think.
The industry and sortof the technology.
I'm curious, as you look atsort of the constellation that
is like the growing universeof like stable coins, what are
like the advantages of a Bitcoinbacked stable coin, like MUSD
(26:18):
compared to like the other, youknow, sort of stable coins that
are out there that are maybenon BTC backed as an example?
Brian (26:24):
I think right now, just in terms of the advantages
of MUSD versus others, thelandscape and opportunity
for Bitcoin back Bitcoinis completely wide open.
I, I know of about twoprojects right now, sort of
our indirect competitors.
To what we're doing.
So there's a, a prettytremendous opportunity right now
for the Bitcoin backed category.
You have an, you know, I thinkit's something like 90 plus
(26:45):
percent of stable coins issuedto date are dollar backed.
So that's an extremely uppedroute and competitive category
that USDT and, you know,tether and, and Circle USDC
have a, a strong hold onright now and we will have
fungibility with those assets.
So, you know, you can comeinto like a, let's say a
liquidity pool or, or exchange.
And swap in and out withUSDC, Tam SD and back, which
(27:08):
I is an important point and,and kind of that build that
market confidence around it.
So you'll always be able toget back to dollars, which is
a, you know, key unlock for,for growth and, and use cases.
But for us, you know, really,I would say we're almost kind
of competing more so withlike the Bitcoin lending.
Players, but you know, we're notdoing any lending or, or credit
on behalf of anyone, right?
(27:28):
It's, it's an entirelyself custodial and
user control journey.
And so that is a prettyappealing use case to a
lot of these differentdemographics and customer
types that we're working with.
And, and then you have the, youknow, the very competitive rate
to borrow against your bitcoin.
Which you know is, I meanfrankly it's, right now the
market rates just for contextare anywhere from five to
(27:49):
7% or even higher, right?
So cost of capital is ahuge differentiator for us.
And then, you know, kind ofmarrying up cost of capital,
so low cost of capital that wehave with, you know, some great
opportunities to earn rewards.
On the other side, it's apretty nice one, two punch that
we think this category of themarket or subcategory of the
stablecoin market, which isBitcoin backed stable coins.
(28:09):
Is going to significantly heatup here in the next 12 to 18
months, especially as Bitcoincontinues to, to proliferate.
Alex (28:14):
Just curious what metrics you personally look at to gauge
Mesos success at this stage.
And you know, again, also maybeuse this as an opportunity
to talk a little bit aboutthe go-to-market approach.
Sure.
That mezzo is takingsort of post main net for
Brian (28:30):
us.
The, the North star metric ison chain activity 'cause that's
how our users grow with us.
The more activity there is onchain, and by activity I really
mean transactions or volume.
Uhhuh and obviously uniqueusers also rate KPI.
There's kind of a Silicon Valleylike SaaS metric called C lt,
which is the cost of customeracquisition, CAC, uh, over the
lifetime value of the customer.
(28:52):
Um, so that's a, a metric wefollow very closely internally
and, you know, we'll bepublishing that as we, we get
bigger and kind of bring thisto market so that those are kind
of the, the north stars for us.
And then, you know, alsoon chain activity, a net
percentage of that is, is fees.
Right.
Because every time someone istransacting on the network,
they're paying a littlebit of gas or you know,
(29:13):
maybe paying that interestrate that we've covered.
And those all go back to,uh, future token holders and
stakeholders of the network.
And so the more we rewardand kind of grow with our
users on the community side,right, the more successful
this project will be.
And that creates a really niceflywheel, which is kind of
where that circular economy, youknow, bitcoin narrative comes
in that we use for mess up.
Alex (29:31):
Got it.
And then on the go to marketside, when you think about
what kinds of users orasset managers you're like.
Sort of thinking about in sortof the, this stage in terms
of both targeting and likebringing into the ecosystem,
like what are the ones thatyou feel, whether those are
demographics or otherwise thatyou think are most interesting?
Um, in terms of buildinglike, you know, additional
values, it relates tothat circular economy.
Brian (29:51):
So there's kind of two camps broadly.
One is institutional and theother is retail or individual.
So starting with institutional,outside, just like getting
yield on their, on theirassets or their balance sheet.
Cost to capital is anextremely, uh, sensitive topic.
Especially because rightnow, you know, there's still
a lot of these institutionsthemselves are, you know, this
is changing in the us Um, soI'm giving the US perspective,
(30:13):
but a lot of 'em are locked outof the traditional finance or
banking system still, right?
With operation choke coin,sort of the fallout of that
from the last administration,which, you know, is
definitely had happened.
There is, you know, uh, a lotof these, these institutions
have had to find creativeways for like working
capital, you know, basic.
Like things you would do ata commercial bank, working
capital or term loan financing,you know, uh, revolved credit
(30:35):
facilities, that sort of thing.
So for us, MUSDappeals to these, these
user groups because.
It's an extremely cost, a slowcost and, and cheap way to,
you know, get some debt againstyour underlying equity or, or
your Bitcoin balance sheet anddo it in a super effective way.
And then use it to like, youknow, pay down your bills or
offer it to your clients toget some yield on it and, and
maybe flip the spread on that.
(30:56):
Um, so we're seeing,uh, a significant amount
of inbound appetite.
Across all the different groups.
Could be custodians, could beexchanges, uh, could be, you
know, like an on-ramp payment.
On-ramp or, or kind of awhole host of different
groups in these categories.
Because a lot of folks,there's a lot of, you know.
Kind of overlappedhere, especially as
this space matures.
And then on the retail side,you know, one of the biggest
(31:17):
things is, um, unlocking and,and, you know, tapping into the
unbanked population, especiallyin like emerging markets.
You know, we've seen stablefunds take off and, and places
like latam for example, likeArgentina, parts of Asia where
there, you know, perpetuallyonline, um, the banking system
is a bit locked out of likethe traditional banking system.
(31:38):
So, you know, they'veobviously, uh.
Country banks and, andsome connectivity there.
But more and more folks like,you know, in places like Africa
for example, they just kind ofjump straight to mobile, right?
And they have this mobilebanking experience and
they're paying in cryptoand using stable coins in
these economies, right?
And, and a lot of that's USDTand USDC, but a lot of them are
also holding Bitcoin, right?
And so there's a prettyappealing use case to them
(32:00):
if you can allow them to.
Get some more capital againsttheir underlying cap or their
underlying Bitcoin, whichis, you know, for many of,
many of these folks, they'reholding Bitcoin already.
And so that really, thiskind of, where this 1%, you
know, low cost of financingcomes in place for them.
And then they can use itto, you know, open up and,
and purchase everyday itemsright at like an Amazon or
(32:21):
whatever the equivalent isin, in their local economy.
Uh, as well as, um, use it forultimately what we want on the
clock is, you know, a way forfolks to finance their homes.
They're cars.
Right.
Big purchases with yourMUSD and, and Bitcoin asset.
Alex (32:37):
And you kind of went there, I was gonna ask you
sort of how you view regionaladoption differences.
And it sounds like, you know,you've sort of broken it out
into there's, you know, sort ofthe unbanked, um, more emerging
markets sort of category.
But when you think about,just like, again, very high
level, how you would lookat sort of like the most
promising and advanced regionsas it relates to what you
all do at Mezo and, and what.
(32:57):
You know where the adoptionis gonna come from.
How would you sort of describethat in terms of how you would
break it down regionally?
Is it on that basis of.
It's kind of like the use caseof like underbanked versus
things that are maybe biggerpurchases that you would sort of
divide it on, or would it be ona different set of, of things?
Brian (33:12):
I mean, I think in general everyone's pretty
interested in the, the kindof, the 1% borrow against your
Bitcoin use case that appeals tomost groups regardless of what,
who are retail, institutional,or emerging or mature market.
And then it's really kind.
Tapping in and getting pluggedinto those rails and where
those users are alreadyinteracting with crypto.
So doing partnerships in thelocal regions depending on
(33:32):
kind of what makes sense.
So for us right now, likejust to give a quick flavor
of like our adoption so far,I mean we're, we, our team
is mostly US and so Westernbased US and and Europe.
A little bit of afootprint in Asia as well.
But Asia is actually, uh, oneof our top three markets as
well as the us and then latam.
We're also seeing a lot of, um,like South America, a lot of,
(33:54):
uh, emerging adoption there.
So those are kind of our threetarget zones right now, though
we're, we're going big on, andas we continue to mature and,
and grow the remaining of theyear, the remain of year, we'll
continue to narrow that downand, and really focus on, you
know, on the ground effortsthere for flourishing adoption.
Alex (34:09):
Maybe going to, you know, where this space sort of
meets, you know, the broader,um, set of constituencies
including government.
So let's talk a little bitabout like government and,
and sort of Bitcoin quickly.
What role do you seegovernments in central banks
playing sort of in the cryptospace in the coming years?
And I'm really most curiousabout examples like us
strategic Bitcoin reserveand sort of adoption and
(34:30):
regulation of, of stable coins.
Were really sort ofthe two topics we've
spent the most time on.
And so how do you seesort of, you know.
Governments and centralbanks playing a role, if
at all, in those domains?
Brian (34:39):
It's a great question.
Um, you know, I've, I'vebeen hoping for regulatory
clarity in the US since Igot into the space in 2016.
Uh, and I'll say the, thecrypto, you know, community
and operators in the space are,are very creative in terms of
finding workarounds and, and,uh, you know, the loopholes of,
of, you know, some of the gapsthat have existed in this space.
(35:01):
I mean, with the lastadministration under Biden,
there was definitely this like.
You know, regulation drivenefforts, but it was, uh, a lot
more adversarial in terms of theapproach, you know, come in and,
and pledge your, you know, workwith us kind of thing, but hey,
here's a slap on the wrist, or,or, you know, potentially even
worse jail time kind of thing.
So that, obviously thatapproach has not worked.
(35:23):
Um, and so it's nice to seesort of a, a different approach
now with the, with the newadministration in office and
how they're thinking about it.
Much more of a collaborativetype approach because for me
it's like this is an inevitable,you know, just like ai, right?
It's like the genie'soutta the bottle.
You can't put the genie back inas, as, when it comes to digital
assets in general, Bitcoin and,and just more generally crypto.
(35:44):
So it's, you may as wellfind a path through that, you
know, fits the, the currentmolds in previous molds of,
of, you know, like securitieslaw, et cetera, et cetera.
In terms of how the US hasbeen regulating and, and
monitoring financial markets.
Us and globally.
And so we're, we're prettyexcited about, uh, the
clarity that's coming out.
I think, and you can kind ofbreak it down into a number
(36:04):
of different categories, youknow, securities, commodities,
you know, governance tokens,stable coins that, you know,
front structured products.
Right.
And a lot of this stuff is.
The same flavor of the past, youknow, in kind of the pre crypto,
pre blockchain era, right?
There is also new things tobe incorporated into, right?
Because some governance tokenscertainly could be securities
and equity, but definitelynot all of 'em, right?
(36:24):
Because a lot of them, you know,have, uh, real utility and, and
use cases behind them beyondjust like this speculative
hold use case, right?
So.
Getting more granular.
I'd love to see, you know,the governments of the world
actually, you know, put inthe work to come up with real
regulation that encouragesinnovation and keeps, you know,
drive this, uh, this forward.
(36:45):
But doing it in a way that,you know, is a net benefit
for the overall ecosystemand doesn't, you know,
keep encouraging a lot of.
I think what maybe crypto'sstill kind of trying to shake
is the reputational image ofit's just filled with scammers
or, or that sort of thing,which there's definitely
those folks, but I think thatis behind us more generally.
It's been obviously a littlebit of a, a challenge of
(37:06):
the last five years kindof to shed that image.
But, you know, with kind ofWall Street going all in, you
know, the US president gettingin and launching literally
their own stable coin U SDone, it's turning a new leaf
and, and um, you know, reallyexcited to kind of see where.
Things evolve over the nextthree years with, uh, this
administration and how that, youknow, creates a nice competitive
effect globally because, youknow, usually when the US
(37:29):
moves, other countries kind offollow suit and rush to beat
them, and I think you're gonnahave kind of a nice, you know.
Competitive factor that overallbenefits this space at large
and, and creates a lot of nicetailwinds for capital inflows
and, and more innovationand ultimately benefiting
the end consumer, which is,you know, meeting them where
they are, which is online.
Awesome.
(37:49):
So
Alex (37:49):
second to last question here.
Um, as it relates tolike macro factors like
inflation interest rates,uh, how do you view those?
Impacting sort ofthe Bitcoin case.
Right.
And maybe to give some, likein my own thoughts around this,
I think you can look at, youknow, sort of the narrative of
Bitcoin as an inflation hedge.
(38:11):
Conversely, you've also seensort of a high correlation of
Bitcoin to like sort of techstock performance, which would
say it's more of a risk on assetand, and you know, so I'm just
sort of curious how you viewthe macroeconomic factors and
like which ones you think are.
Indicative or which ones do youthink are like really the ones
Brian (38:26):
to watch for?
I think a lot of people like totry to put, you know, bitcoin
and, you know, crypto assetsin, in like one category.
And I don't think it necessarilyfits cleanly into one category.
Certainly touches anumber of categories.
Probably the most sort ofhighly correlate I would say is.
And, and where I see Bitcoingoing is kind of being
like that digital goal.
Digital scarcity, youknow, scarce asset, right?
(38:49):
That definitely benefits withthe current money printing
going on and inflationgoing on with the US dollar.
So as the M two supply and,you know, that continues to, to
kick up and, and we have, it'sa pretty hot topic right now
and, and on Twitter if you're,or ex if you're following
that with Trump and Elon.
But, uh, in general, Ithink, you know, Bitcoin
(39:10):
has continued to reap thebenefits if the money printer
printing, money printingmachine is continuing to go.
As they say.
But on the flip side, you know,I think also it'll benefit even
if that does come down right,or or if the printing does stop,
because you know, I think again,as I said, the gene are the
bottle bottle with Bitcoin andit's kind of, that creates this
preservation of value effect,which a lot of countries and,
(39:32):
and you know, governments,uh, even states in the us,
Arizona, New Hampshire, Texas.
And then the Bitcointreasury play, which is a
whole nother sort of theMicroStrategy playbook, right?
You're seeing a huge tailwindaround this right now, and
there's a, you know, thatkind of all boils down to
this Bitcoin per share, right?
So if the equity ofMicroStrategy goes up,
you're effectively.
(39:53):
Getting more Bitcoin for yourdollar by buying that equity.
I think, um, that's a trendthat is going to continue, at
least for the next few quarters.
And yeah, I think ultimately notto give any price predictions,
but I think the market cap of,of digital assets and, you know,
Bitcoin with Bitcoin in a way isprobably gonna double from here,
if not continue to go further.
Alex (40:11):
So Brian, we ask all of our guests for their high
stakes hot take, um, which is,you know, their biggest and
boldest prediction for Web3.
Gotta jump down alittle bit there.
Maybe in your case, Bitcoin, um,for sort of the balance of 2025.
Um, and I, I would almostpress you on like, is there
something that you think,you know, big that you think
the market is, is missing?
Um, or that like, you know,people don't really fully have
(40:32):
their heads wrapped around.
Brian (40:33):
I think, yeah, well, I, I touched on it a little
bit with the sort of the microstrategy or, or strategy now
playbook and what's happeningwith the public equities
market and taking advantageof Bitcoin tailwinds there.
I think one thing that'sinteresting about that is,
you know, defi and cryptois, is quite complex, right?
So to use your, yourBitcoin right now.
You gotta set up a walletand, and do all these
(40:54):
different things, whichthat I think is improving.
That's definitely something,a trend I'm watching and
you know, is how do weimprove the user experience
overall for people wantingto interact with with crypto.
And that's happening.
Real time, like right now,you know, Stripe for example,
acquiring Bridge and kindof going in all in on stable
coins, you know, a lot of thebig payments companies, visa,
et cetera, incorporating it.
Uber's now starting toincorporate it as of yesterday.
(41:16):
Stablecoin paymentsand that optionality a
stake and shake, right?
So those are, you know,pretty significant.
Although the user adoptionis still getting there,
but like just the factthat these companies are
embracing it and unlocking.
And improving that userexperience and just making
it kind of a, you know,boring, everyday asset.
I think that's really a keything that needs to happen
for, you know, crypto this, youknow, ultra mainstream product.
(41:40):
But on the flip side, what'sinteresting with the, the
treasury plays of the strategyplaybooks and, and the Bitcoin
treasury companies is, youknow, there's a. One of the
things that they're doing iskind of indirectly unlocking
user experience and, andways to acquire Bitcoin.
So it's like you're alreadybuying stocks, right?
And you don't have to godownload the Coinbase account
or, or you know, open upa, a wallet and instead you
(42:02):
can just keep your CharlesSchwab, you know, brokerage
account or your financialadvisor and get some indirect
Bitcoin exposure that way.
And, uh, you know,it's a super easy way.
You don't have to thinkabout it that much.
That's removing a lot of thosebottlenecks for people who have
maybe it and historically lockedout by complexity or just,
you know, couldn't be botheredto learn or new technology.
And, um, I think that's a trendthat is, can continue, continue
(42:24):
on, and really accelerate here.
And then ideally thesetwo worlds converge.
We're not even separatingcrypto and, you know, equities
or commodities at this point.
It's just all sortof in one thing.
Right.
And that's where I, you know,sort of see this space going.
Alex (42:38):
Awesome.
Well, we'll haveto park it there.
Brian Mahoney, uh,visas and Mezo.
Um, thanks for coming on, Brian.
Look forward to havingyou on again soon.
Thanks, Jeremy.
Keep exploring andkeep innovating.
Learn more@validationcloud.ioand follow us on X and LinkedIn
to stay connected as we continueto shape Web3 for institutions.
(42:59):
This is high stakes withAlex Naka signing on.
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