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Mezo was created by blockchain venture studio Thesis, founded by Matt Luongo, who also serves as CEO. The project raised a $21 million fundraising round led by Pantera Capital, with further participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Draper Associates, Primitive Ventures, and others. A subsequent $7.5 million strategic extension was led by Ledger. Mezo is described as a “permissionless Bitcoin economic layer that leverages a neutral smart contract infrastructure,” designed to provide cheap and fast transactions and enable a thriving circular economy built on Bitcoin.
Mezo debuted its mainnet on May 28, 2025, following a testnet period in 2024. The MEZO Token Generation Event (TGE) took place on April 1, 2026, with spot trading opening on the same day on major centralized exchanges including Coinbase, Bitget, KuCoin, Gate, Kraken, and MEXC.
Mezo is built as a Bitcoin finance platform that enables its users to unlock practical utility in BTC. Users can use their BTC as collateral to mint and spend Mezo’s native stablecoin MUSD, creating a circular economy powered by BTC. MEZO is the native coordination and amplification token of the ecosystem. Users who lock MEZO receive veMEZO and can boost the yield on their locked BTC positions by up to 5x. The protocol uses a vote-escrow model inspired by established DeFi systems like Curve and Aerodrome. Protocol fees generated from real activity — including bridging, swaps, and lending — are redistributed to aligned participants who lock assets and contribute to network coordination.
