Mezo, a Bitcoin-native lending protocol, will partner with Aerodrome Finance to boost trading for its MEZO token and its Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, MUSD, on the Base network. The collaboration aims to expand financial use cases for Bitcoin by linking Mezo’s products with an active DeFi user base on Base.
Under the plan announced Thursday, Mezo will allocate 2.25% of its MEZO token supply to Aerodrome’s vote-escrow (veAERO) participants—users who lock AERO tokens for governance influence and rewards. The incentive is intended to encourage veAERO holders to allocate liquidity to MEZO trading pairs, increasing on-chain activity around MEZO and MUSD.
Aerodrome is a liquidity provision platform on Base, developed by the team behind Optimism. By tapping Aerodrome’s infrastructure and user base, Mezo gains access to a larger pool of traders and more consistent market activity—an important advantage for Bitcoin-native projects that often struggle to attract liquidity.
Mezo lets users borrow against their Bitcoin holdings. The protocol said it has issued more than 2,000 loans and facilitated the movement of roughly $23 million in Bitcoin-denominated assets from Ethereum. The Aerodrome partnership is intended to help sustain trading volume for both the MEZO token and MUSD stablecoin as Mezo scales.
Bitcoin DeFi activity has increased since 2024, with more projects aiming to provide lending, borrowing and yield on Bitcoin. Examples include Lombard, which is building Bitcoin-based lending infrastructure and has partnered with Bitwise to offer institutional yield and borrowing options, and Hashi, which launched on Sui with early commitments from BitGo, Bullish and FalconX to enable on-chain Bitcoin lending and yield.
The Mezo–Aerodrome arrangement exemplifies a broader trend of adapting existing DeFi models and liquidity tooling to support Bitcoin-focused financial products, using ecosystems like Base to reach active DeFi users and deepen market activity for new tokens and stablecoins.
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