Note: This piece was originally presented as a talk at the House of ZK in Las Vegas. You can watch the full talk here.

Bitcoin is many things to many people—a peer-to-peer payment method, a secure store of value, and a hedge against inflation. The irony is that Bitcoin itself, being famously immutable, rarely changes. What has changed is us.

In the beginning, however, what many of us wanted was a way to pay for things without oversight.

For me, those days were magical. In 2014, I founded Fold with a simple idea: let people spend bitcoin at places like Starbucks and Target. The execution was a bit of a hack — we used the secondary gift card market — but it worked. We were demoing the kind of stuff you see from major brands today, but a decade earlier. It was exhilarating.

And it got pretty popular. But that didn’t last: as Bitcoin blocks filled up, our use case was priced out of the market.

I did some napkin math the other day. If our users had held onto all the BTC they spent on coffee in those early Fold days, it would be worth around $424 million collectively today. That’s not a typo. The cost of a cup of coffee became a lesson in the immense opportunity cost of spending the best money I've ever had. This story isn't unique; countless early adopters have similar regrets, from expensive pizzas to Silk Road orders that now cost small fortunes.

That experience forced a reckoning, ultimately culminating in the 2017 blocksize debate. 2017 was the moment individual pain became a collective identity crisis. The question was no longer how we could spend our Bitcoin, but why on earth we ever would.

The community decided Bitcoin was a store of value. If you didn’t like it, you could fork off with Bitcoin Cash. This was hard. We were running a project that literally let people buy coffee. Personally, I was uncomfortable. I had joined for the censorship-resistant e-cash, and suddenly, the economic majority wanted something different. But Bitcoin Cash felt wrong, so I stuck around, knowing there was something I was missing. At Fold, we pivoted from a spending app to an earning app, and it has since grown significantly.

Honestly, I miss the wild-west days of spending BTC freely. But those days aren’t coming back. Why? It boils down to a simple, timeless economic principle.

Gresham's Law & The Danger of Easy Money

The choice between spending different types of money is ancient. Since ancient Mesopotamia, people have understood the difference between holding a gold coin versus a temple’s paper script. This phenomenon was eventually named Gresham's Law in the Middle Ages, and it describes the tension between fiat and commodity-backed money.

The idea is simple: "bad" money drives out "good." When given the choice, people will always spend the weaker currency—the paper fiat—while hoarding the one they know to be harder and more valuable. This makes sense. If a currency collapses, all you have left is whatever the currency is “printed” on. Choosing between paper and a commodity like gold or silver is a no-brainer.

Parents can see this play out when they give out allowances to their kids. I have an eight-year-old and a six-year-old. A few Saturdays ago, I told them I owed them $8 and $6, respectively, for their chores. I put a $20 bill on the table and asked them to make change (a classic parenting trick to sneak in some math). They figured out the amounts quickly...but they wouldn't make the change.

My daughter, a saver, had a few big bills and a few dollar coins. My son only had dollar coins. Neither kid would give up a dollar coin. They were happy to part with paper cash, but not the coins. I asked them why. "Yeah, we know it's a dollar," they said, "but it's pretty and we like it."It turns out this answer has driven economic behavior for ages! People prefer commodity-based coinage over paper money, and the coins slowly fall out of circulation. Today, we’re seeing this same dynamic play out with dollars and Bitcoin.

As Bitcoiners, we instinctively know this. When faced with the choice of spending your BTC or your dollars, you’ll spend the dollars every time. So, how exactly are we supposed to build a circular economy if no one wants to part with their sats?

As I wrote about in my Bitcoin-backed mortgage journey, the answer isn't to spend your Bitcoin. It's to use it as a financial foundation.

Bitcoin-Backed Money

Instead of spending the best asset in the world, effectively selling it, what if you could easily borrow against it?

In 2010, Hal Finney posted about the idea of "Bitcoin banks". He imagined each bank issuing its own currency, with different policies — full reserve, partial reserve, redeemable against BTC, etc. These banks would enable users to transact while remaining confident in their reserves, backed by Bitcoin

In its final form, Bitcoin isn't the primary medium of exchange—it's the ultimate settlement layer. People will rarely send BTC back and forth, but rather use financial instruments secured by it.

And that's exactly what's happening on the network today. DeFi and stablecoins are a hint toward Hal's vision. They are becoming the de facto Bitcoin-backed banks.

We'll know we've achieved the dream when you can buy something mundane (like a burrito) without a second thought. More importantly, it's when you can buy one without worrying about capital gains tax, and without being terrified they'll name a day after you because you became the next Bitcoin Pizza Guy.

How We Get There

So, how does this actually work? Mezo brings Hal Finney's vision to life. With Mezo, you begin by depositing your Bitcoin to open a credit line. This is your foundation. From there, you can borrow our flagship product, MUSD—a fully Bitcoin-backed stablecoin—at just a 1% fixed APR. Unlike centralized lenders, we don't think "pristine collateral" should cost you 9% to 12%. Mezo’s rates respect the quality of your asset.

MUSD is explicitly built for practical, everyday spending. Here's how it works:

Step 1: Deposit Your Bitcoin

  • Connect your wallet and deposit Bitcoin into a secure smart contract on Mezo.

Step 2: Open Your MUSD Credit Line

  • Mint MUSD, pegged to the US dollar, at a fixed 1% APR using your Bitcoin as collateral.

Step 3: Access a Spending Platform

  • Use platforms like BitRefill to convert your MUSD into gift cards for real-world spending.

Step 4: Purchase Real Goods

  • Use the gift cards (e.g., for Uber Eats) to buy everyday items, like a burrito, without selling your Bitcoin.

Step 5: Manage Your Loan (or Don’t)

  • Keep the loan open; if your Bitcoin appreciates faster than the 1% interest (historically, it has), you benefit without needing to repay immediately.

MUSD is a tool designed for life. It lets you have your burrito and eat it too. You can bank on yourself, maintaining your Bitcoin exposure while accessing your equity for life’s big and small moments. Mezo is built specifically for those significant, long-term decisions—like buying a home for your growing family, leveraging the wealth you've earned, stacked, and wisely held. That's the elegance of MUSD and Mezo.

Spend smarter. Save stronger. Bank on yourself.

Note: This piece was originally presented as a talk at the House of ZK in Las Vegas. You can watch the full talk here.