In recent years, two-dimensional layers of transition metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides, also referred to as “MXenes” have been studied for use in a variety of applications such as batteries, supercapacitors and thermoelectric devices. Transition metal nitrides are especially promising as they show a variety of interesting properties such as high conductivity, compositional and surface termination-dependent band gap, high catalytic activity, high melting point and exceptional hardness. They are also ideal for use as lithium ion battery anodes due to their high specific capacity and lower redox potential for Li⁺ insertion than their corresponding oxides. We report a new technique for synthesizing large area, vertically oriented two-dimensional (2D) layers of molybdenum nitride (MoN) involving synthesis of 2D nanosheets of MoO₃ using hot-filament chemical vapor deposition and their subsequent nitridation to δ-MoN using ammonia. This two-step process of phase transforming 2D oxide layers potentially enables easy synthesis of a wide variety of MXenes of nitrides, sulfides, and carbides of tunable composition. Using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and differential capacitance measurements, we show that 2D layers of MoN operate as insertion electrodes as opposed to bulk MoN which operate as conversion electrodes. Unlike conversion electrodes, the crystal lattice in insertion electrodes does not undergo compositional changes and therefore undergo small extent of volumetric expansion. Hence, these electrodes tend to show stable capacity even after several hundred charge-discharge cycles. Our electrodes show a stable capacity of 320 mAh/g after 200 cycles and do not show any loss in their crystallinity.