- Mezo Prime is intended for businesses that own Bitcoin but have few ways to use it.
- Bitcoin kept in an Enclave may be used as collateral to borrow MUSD, Mezo’s stablecoin backed by Bitcoin, or locked as veBTC to earn protocol fees.
Mezo Prime, a product intended to provide institutional investors and corporate treasuries access to Bitcoin yield and lending on Mezo, was introduced today by Mezo, a Bitcoin-native finance platform. Bullish is a key go-to-market client for the product, which is developed in collaboration with Anchorage Digital Bank, the nation’s first federally licensed digital asset bank.
Mezo Prime: Segregated Vaults, Qualified Custody, Real Protocol Yield
Mezo Prime is intended for businesses that own Bitcoin but have few ways to use it. Up until now, corporate treasuries and institutional holders have mostly had to decide between depending on arrangements that don’t satisfy their needs for risk management, control, and reporting, or leaving Bitcoin idle in custody. Mezo Prime is designed to bridge that gap.
“Over a million Bitcoin sits on corporate balance sheets today, and almost none of it is working,” said Matt Luongo, co-founder of Mezo and CEO of Thesis. “Mezo Prime changes that. Segregated custody through Anchorage Digital Bank, no rehypothecation, real yield from protocol activity. We built this for the CFOs and treasury teams who already own the asset and are ready to put it to work how they choose.”
Enclaves, a segregated Bitcoin vault intended for institutional depositors, lie at the core of Mezo’s Prime product. There is no asset mixing across accounts, and each enclave is separate for each depositor. Anchorage Digital Bank provides custody, and its current clientele may purchase the product directly via the Anchorage Digital platform.
Bitcoin kept in an Enclave may be used as collateral to borrow MUSD, Mezo’s stablecoin backed by Bitcoin, or locked as veBTC to earn protocol fees.
“Institutions want to do more with their Bitcoin, but not at the expense of security and control. Mezo Prime delivers both secure, segregated custody and direct access to onchain yield in one platform.”— Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital.
Clients of Anchorage Digital Bank may now access Mezo Prime. Go to mezo.org/institutional for further details.
The first institution to take part in the Bitcoin yield product with Anchorage Digital is Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), a publicly traded institutional digital asset platform. The product will be used to deploy a piece of its corporate Bitcoin treasury while staying within the company’s current custody and compliance infrastructure. Bullish has contributed 250 BTC to Mezo in conjunction with the introduction of the Mezo Prime product range.
“Bullish was built on the belief that institutional standards and digital asset participation aren’t in conflict, and we’re delighted to work with Mezo as a launch customer. Their veBTC design is a great example of that philosophy in practice – mitigating smart contract risk and keeping the underlying BTC secure.” said Tarun Kapoor, Vice President, Bullish
Mezo is a decentralized Bitcoin-native finance protocol that allows users to access a full DeFi stack without leaving the Bitcoin economy, earn yield backed by actual protocol revenue, and borrow against their Bitcoin at set rates. Its main offerings are a native DEX for swaps and liquidity provisioning, veBTC, yield-bearing Bitcoin supported by protocol fees, and MUSD, a stablecoin backed entirely by Bitcoin. Dan Held, Arthur Hayes, Dovey Wan, and Will Reeves, CEO of Fold, provides advice to Mezo. Thesis*, a Bitcoin infrastructure firm with products including Fold, Lolli, Taho wallet, and tBTC, is the company behind Mezo. Go to mezo.org for further details.
Bullish (NYSE: BLSH) is a global digital asset platform with an institutional emphasis that offers information services and regulated market infrastructure. This includes Bullish Exchange, an institutionally oriented spot and derivatives exchange for digital assets that combines automated market making with a high-performance central limit order book matching engine to provide deep and consistent liquidity. As a cryptocurrency asset service provider that offers spot trading and custody services for digital assets, Bullish Europe is governed by MiCAR.
CoinDesk, a major supplier of digital asset media and information services, is owned by Bullish. CoinDesk offers the following services: CoinDesk Data, a comprehensive suite of digital asset market data and analytics that offers real-time insights into prices, trends, and market dynamics; CoinDesk Indices; and CoinDesk Insights, a digital asset media and events provider and operator of coindesk.com, a digital media platform that covers news and insights about digital assets, the underlying markets, policy, and blockchain technology. For more information, please visit bullish.com and follow LinkedIn and X.
Through trading, staking, custody, governance, settlement, stablecoin issuance, and the industry’s top security infrastructure, Anchorage Digital is a global cryptocurrency platform that allows institutions to engage in digital assets. Anchorage Digital serves institutions through Anchorage Digital Singapore, which has a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore; Anchorage Digital NY, which has a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services; and Anchorage Digital’s self-custody wallet Porto. Anchorage Digital is home to Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., the first federally chartered cryptocurrency bank in the United States.
Additionally, Anchorage Digital Bank uses a licensed sub-custodian who is insured by the FDIC to provide fiat custody services. Leading companies including Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, Goldman Sachs, KKR, and Visa finance Anchorage Digital, which is valued at $4.2 billion. Anchorage Digital was established in 2017 in San Francisco, California, and now has offices in New York, Singapore, Porto, Portugal, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Visit anchorage.com, X @Anchorage, and LinkedIn to find out more.
Building on Bitcoin is the focus of Thesis*, a venture capital firm. Fold, Mezo, tBTC, Acre, Lolli, and Taho are just a few of the market-leading products that Thesis has developed since 2014 with the goal of empowering people and communities. Go to thesis.co to find out more.
