Investing.com – Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish has invested in Mezo, the firm behind a new finance platform which offers institutional holders a secure way to generate yield and access lending on their Bitcoin stockpiles, Investing.com has learned.
Bullish, the Peter Thiel-backed parent of crypto news and data provider CoinDesk, has invested — in Mezo.
A portion of Bullish’s corporate Bitcoin treasury will also be deployed through the platform, dubbed Mezo Prime, while remaining within its custody and compliance infrastructure.
Mezo Prime is designed to offer institutional depositors isolated digital Bitcoin vaults, with no commingling of assets across accounts, according to Mezo. When customers lock their Bitcoin on Mezo Prime for a given period, they will receive holdings that entitle them to a share of the paid interest, as as well as trading and bridging fees, on the platform.
These holdings can also be used as collateral for borrowing Mezo’s Bitcoin-based stablecoin, which aims to remain pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Mezo Prime is now available to clients of Anchorage Digital Bank, which specializes in providing crypto-related banking services to institutional clients.
Speaking to Investing.com, Mezo CEO Matt Luongo said the company is now in conversations with other institutional investors.
“The way Mezo works, every new institution that deposits creates more protocol activity, which generates more fees for everyone in the system. The flywheel compounds. We built Prime so that the hundredth institution benefits from the first ninety-nine,” Luongo added.
Shares of Bullish have risen by around 1% so far this year. The group’s recent flotation was part of a wave of crypto-industry offerings that included names like online trading platform Etoro and stablecoin issuer Circle. Crypto company Galaxy Digital also moved its listing to the Nasdaq from the Toronto Stock Exchange in May, while Gemini, a crypto exchange founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, completed an initial public offering in September.
Bullish started with an initial investment from Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with separate backing from Nomura and Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz.
(Senad Karaahmetovic contributed reporting)
