Mezo, a Bitcoin-native lending protocol, has formed a partnership with Aerodrome Finance to increase trading activity for its MEZO token and its Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, MUSD, on the Base network. The collaboration is designed to connect Mezo’s Bitcoin-focused products with Base’s active DeFi user base and liquidity tools.
As part of the agreement, Mezo will allocate 2.25% of its MEZO token supply to Aerodrome’s vote-escrow (veAERO) participants—users who lock AERO tokens to gain governance influence and rewards. The allocation is meant to incentivize veAERO holders to direct liquidity toward MEZO trading pairs, with the goal of raising on-chain volume and market depth for both MEZO and MUSD.
Aerodrome is a liquidity provisioning platform built on Base by the team behind Optimism. By leveraging Aerodrome’s infrastructure and community, Mezo expects to tap a larger pool of traders and more consistent market activity—an important advantage for Bitcoin-native projects, which often face challenges attracting sustained liquidity.
Mezo enables users to borrow against Bitcoin holdings. The protocol says it has issued more than 2,000 loans and facilitated the transfer of roughly $23 million in Bitcoin-denominated assets from Ethereum. Mezo’s team views the Aerodrome partnership as a way to help maintain trading volume for MEZO and MUSD as the protocol grows.
Activity in Bitcoin-focused DeFi has picked up since 2024, with several projects pursuing lending, borrowing and yield strategies for Bitcoin. Examples include Lombard, which is developing Bitcoin-based lending infrastructure and has partnered with Bitwise to provide institutional yield and borrowing options, and Hashi, which launched on Sui with early backing from BitGo, Bullish and FalconX to enable on-chain Bitcoin lending and yield.
The Mezo–Aerodrome deal reflects a broader pattern of adapting established DeFi models and liquidity mechanisms to support Bitcoin-oriented financial products, using ecosystems like Base to reach active DeFi users and deepen market activity for new tokens and stablecoins.
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