Mezo leans on Aerodrome’s veAERO flywheel to grow MEZO and MUSD on Base

Mezo will stream 2.25% of MEZO supply to Aerodrome’s veAERO voters over 30 days, betting Base’s vote-escrow whales can bootstrap deep MEZO and MUSD liquidity for Bitcoin DeFi.

Mezo, a Bitcoin (BTC)-native lending layer, has struck a strategic deal with Aerodrome Finance, the largest decentralized exchange on Coinbase’s Base network, to make Aerodrome the primary DeFi liquidity hub for the MEZO token. Under the agreement, Mezo will allocate 2.25% of total MEZO supply to veAERO voters over a 30-day period, aiming to bootstrap deep, decentralized liquidity for both MEZO and MUSD, its Bitcoin-backed stablecoin. Aerodrome already anchors Base’s liquidity, having previously pushed its own total value locked (TVL) past $1 billion amid a surge in AERO emissions-driven yield.

Mezo taps Aerodrome’s veAERO to grow MEZO, MUSD

The move is explicitly designed to pull Base’s most sophisticated vote-escrow capital into Bitcoin’s emerging DeFi stack. Aerodrome’s veAERO voter base includes protocols, high-net-worth traders, and institutions such as Coinbase Ventures and Animoca Brands, which have used AERO’s ve(3,3) governance model to direct emissions and fees toward the most productive pools. “Aerodrome’s community wrote the playbook for sustainable DeFi yield through vote-escrow economics,” Mezo founder and CEO Matt Luongo said. “We partnered with them because we wanted that audience to see what happens when you apply those mechanics to Bitcoin. Their users understand the model better than anyone. Now we’re giving them a reason to expand their capital across.”

By directing veAERO voters to MEZO and MUSD pairs, Mezo is effectively importing a proven liquidity engine from Base into Bitcoin DeFi. Mezo’s own “Aerodrome for Bitcoin lending” design channels borrower interest on MUSD loans, origination charges, and DEX swap fees into yield for BTC lockers, who currently earn around 4% APR through incentives and rewards. That sits against a broader DeFi backdrop where sector-wide TVL rebounded to roughly $129 billion in 2024, up 137% year-on-year as rising crypto prices and cheaper Layer-2 infrastructure pulled capital back on-chain.

The Aerodrome Finance tie-up comes on the heels of Mezo’s “Bring Bitcoin Home” campaign, which migrated about $23 million in tBTC, cbBTC, WBTC, and USDT from Ethereum pre-deposit vaults on Mellow Protocol into Mezo’s mainnet, with deposits routed via DeFi yield network Turtle Club. Mezo’s TVL now sits near $76.3 million, with roughly $500 million in lifetime MUSD volume, more than 2,000 loans issued at a fixed 1% APR, and over 43,500 mainnet users. That footprint is still small next to leaders like Aerodrome or top DeFi chains tracked by dashboards such as DeFiLlama, but it signals growing appetite for Bitcoin-first yield strategies as BTC itself becomes a larger share of total DeFi TVL.

Behind the yield mechanics, Mezo has focused heavily on infrastructure, security, and institutional access. Its validator set includes P2P, Chorus One, and Everstake, while smart contracts have been audited by Quantstamp and Thesis Defense. Anchorage Digital provides custody and compliance rails for larger allocators, a piece traditional institutions increasingly prioritize when deploying into DeFi. On the capital side, Mezo has raised $28.5 million in seed funding led by Pantera, with Multicoin, Paradigm, Polychain, Draper, Nascent, a16z, and ParaFi among backers, placing it alongside other BTC-centric projects that venture firms have backed to capture the next leg of on-chain credit markets.

Bitcoin’s role in DeFi expanding

As Bitcoin’s role in DeFi expands, Mezo is positioning itself as the lending and liquidity layer that lets BTC holders borrow, earn, and deploy capital without leaving the Bitcoin economy. Its core products — MUSD, veBTC yield positions, and a native DEX — mirror the stack that has helped Base and Aerodrome dominate liquidity and trading in their own ecosystem. With Aerodrome’s veAERO voters now financially incentivized to seed MEZO and MUSD pools, Mezo is effectively testing whether the same vote-escrow incentives that drove Base’s growth can be replicated atop Bitcoin and its wrapped representations, potentially shifting a larger slice of DeFi’s $100 billion-plus collateral base toward BTC-backed credit.