Mezzo, A Bitcoin Bitcoin
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The scaling network built by venture studio Thesis has raised $7.5 million in a strategic funding round led by Ledger Cathay Fund.
Thesis said on Friday that other investors participating in the round included ArkStream Capital, Aquarius Fund, Flowdesk, GSR, Origin Protocol, and Bybit’s ecosystem project Mantle EcoFund.
The strategic funding round comes just three months after Mezo emerged from stealth with a $21 million funding round led by Pantera Capital, bringing its total funding to $30 million. “There were a few additional checks that we had in the last announcement, but they were not part of this strategic round,” Matt Luongo, Mezo’s founder and Thesis CEO, told The Block.
Luongo said Mezzo began raising a strategic round about a month ago and closed last week. He declined to comment on the structure or valuation of the round.
Mezzo’s new funding
Mezo plans to use the new funding to expand network adoption. This includes integrating more products within the network. This includes allowing users to trade tBTC or Thesis. 
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Switching to Mezo allows you to use stBTC in decentralized applications to earn additional income.
Luongo declined to comment on how much Mezo currently provides in returns, but said the platform has around 12,000 users who have deposited around 2,376 BTC, which is currently worth around $160 million. According to Luongo, Mezo issues “Proof of HODL” points to depositors, and has so far issued more than 1.2 billion points to its top 10 users.
When asked whether the points will later be converted into Mezo’s own tokens, Luongo said details will be announced soon. The launch schedule for the MEZO tokens will also be revealed at a later date.
“MEZO is part of our dual-token staking validation model,” Luongo said. “Validators can stake MEZO to secure the network. (…) The primary use cases for MEZO are centered around building a true economic layer for Bitcoin, enabling applications like BitcoinFi, a native Bitcoin yield powered by Acre, a Thesis project, as well as on-chain social use cases and others to be announced.”
For example, Ledger plans to integrate Mezo directly into its product line, Luongo said, but did not provide specifics.
Founded in 2013, Thesis has built several Bitcoin-centric projects, including Mezo, Acre, tBTC, and Fold, the latter of which recently announced plans to go public. Thesis currently employs about 40 people and recently hired former Binance executive Kathy Zhu as its head of Asia Pacific, which Luongo said was “due to the growing interest in BitcoinFi in the region.”
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