What is Mezo? Building a Bitcoin-Centered, Bankless Financial Ecosystem

Jul 4, 2025MEXC

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As cryptocurrency and blockchain technology continue to evolve rapidly, Bitcoin (BTC), as the first cryptocurrency, has always held a pivotal position. Although Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade, its application in everyday finance still faces many challenges. Mezo is a Bitcoin-centered platform created to overcome these obstacles and enable Bitcoin to truly integrate into people's daily lives.

1. Mezo Project Overview

Mezo is a Bitcoin-focused platform with the core goal of enabling Bitcoin to play a greater role in everyday finance through a suite of innovative technologies and services. The platform is EVM-compatible, allowing developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts within a familiar environment. Additionally, by leveraging the infrastructure of tBTC, Mezo provides Bitcoin holders with more convenient and secure access to financial applications.

2. Mezo Project Background

Since its launch, Bitcoin has been widely regarded as “digital gold,” valued primarily for its store of value. However, its liquidity and practical application in real-world financial scenarios have remained limited. Many holders are hesitant to sell their BTC, yet lack accessible options to utilize it for spending or investment. In traditional finance, converting Bitcoin into fiat or stablecoins often requires centralized intermediaries—contradicting Bitcoin’s decentralized principles and introducing compliance and trust-related risks.

Mezo was developed to bridge this gap. It provides a Bitcoin-native financial platform that enables users to more effectively manage, utilize, and grow their BTC holdings. By doing so, Mezo supports Bitcoin’s evolution from a speculative asset into a foundational component of everyday finance.

3. Mezo's Core Vision: Making Bitcoin "Supernormal"

Mezo envisions a world where using Bitcoin is as seamless and instinctive as swiping a bank card or grabbing a coffee, what it calls "Supernormal." By embedding Bitcoin deeply into everyday financial life, Mezo aims to shift its identity away from a speculative asset and toward functioning as true, usable currency.

4. Key Features of Mezo's Core Design & Architecture

4.1 MUSD and Lending Functionality

Users can deposit BTC as collateral to open a CDP (Collateralized Debt Position) and mint MUSD, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar. MUSD can be used for spending, trading, lending, or further borrowing. The borrowing interest rate is competitive and fixed, enabling users to unlock the value of their BTC holdings efficiently.

4.2 BTC as the Gas Token

Mezo uses BTC natively as the gas token for network transactions, creating a fully Bitcoin-centered user experience. This design not only reinforces BTC's role as a transactional and cultural asset, but also ensures that network fees paid in BTC are redistributed to participants as a consistent source of yield.

4.3 tBTC Bridging and Multi-Chain Support

Mezo is built on top of tBTC, the largest decentralized Bitcoin bridging protocol, enabling secure and reliable tokenization of real BTC for on-chain use. It supports integration with multiple ecosystems, including EVM-compatible chains. All BTC reserves are transparent and publicly auditable in real time via tbtcScan, ensuring trust and accountability.

4.4 Dual Staking Incentive Mechanism

Mezo employs a dual staking model that combines yield incentives with validator participation. This approach encourages users to engage in network governance and security, increasing the decentralization and overall resilience of the protocol.

4.5 BitcoinFi Financial Ecosystem

Mezo is building a native financial ecosystem centered around BTC, offering services such as lending, yield aggregation, and asset management. This infrastructure is designed to serve the needs of BTC holders and unlock new use cases for their assets.

4.6 Developer-Friendly Environment

Mezo is compatible with both the Ethereum and Cosmos technology stacks, enabling developers from both ecosystems to easily build dApps and modules. This cross-stack support fosters rapid ecosystem growth and diverse application development.

5. Mezo's Dual-Architecture Vision

The launch of the Mezo mainnet marks the full implementation of its dual-architecture vision, combining two complementary environments, The Cathedral and The Bazaar, to provide a unified on-chain experience that caters to both experienced users and newcomers.

The Cathedral is a secure and stable Bitcoin-native financial ecosystem that integrates core DeFi tools such as swap, lending, bridging, and staking. All functionalities are custom-built around Bitcoin, offering a streamlined and intuitive user experience.

The Bazaar is a fully decentralized, permissionless development environment where all applications run on the Mezo network and are based on Bitcoin assets. Within the Bazaar, the Mezo community can freely build SocialFi, GameFi, and experimental dApps, continually expanding the possibilities of the BitcoinFi ecosystem.

6. Mezo Tokenomics

6.1 MUSD

MUSD is Mezo's native stablecoin, fully backed by Bitcoin reserves. It is designed to help BTC holders unlock liquidity without having to sell their assets. By collateralizing BTC, users can open Collateralized Debt Positions (CDPs) to mint MUSD, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar. MUSD can be used for everyday spending, asset trading, lending, or further collateralized borrowing, bringing real utility and liquidity to Bitcoin holdings.

6.2 mats and HODL Score

mats is the incentive point system within the Mezo ecosystem. Users can earn mats by locking BTC and participating in community activities. These points can be redeemed for matsnet BTC on the testnet, which is used for node validation and incentive distribution.

At the same time, each user's HODL Score is determined by both the amount of BTC locked and the duration of the lock. A higher score results in greater staking rewards, creating a positive feedback loop that encourages long-term holding and active engagement in the network.

6.3 Tigris Incentive System

Tigris is Mezo’s native incentive distribution engine, designed to integrate staking, ecosystem participation, and revenue-sharing mechanisms into a flexible, upgradeable framework for income generation. In the future, users will be able to lock Mats or BTC to gain governance rights and access to platform-generated revenue.

As a Bitcoin-focused platform, Mezo is advancing the everyday use of Bitcoin through a comprehensive suite of innovative technologies and financial services. It addresses key challenges faced by Bitcoin holders while building a native Bitcoin financial ecosystem that offers more versatile and accessible solutions. As Mezo continues to develop, Bitcoin is poised to play an increasingly significant role in mainstream financial activity.

Disclaimer: This material does not constitute advice on investments, taxes, legal matters, finance, accounting, consulting, or any other related services, nor is it a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any assets. MEXC Learn provides information for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Please ensure you fully understand the risks involved and invest cautiously. All investment decisions and outcomes are the sole responsibility of the user.