Peter Thiel and affiliated Founders Fund entities have exited their entire stake in Ethereum treasury firm ETHZilla (ETHZ), according to a Schedule 13G filed with the SEC (US). The disclosure removes a high-profile backer at a time when publicly listed crypto treasury strategies face tightening capital conditions.
Shares fell nearly 7% in premarket trading to around $3.20, per Yahoo Finance. The stock now trades roughly 97% below its $107 peak last August, when ETHZilla first announced its pivot from biotech to a digital asset treasury model.
Thiel-linked entities, including Founders Fund Growth Management, LLC, had disclosed a 7.5% position in August 2025 during the company’s rebrand from 180 Life Sciences Corp. The backing initially sent shares up more than 90% in a single session, marking one of the sharpest one-day moves among crypto-linked equities last year.
Can Ethereum Treasury Models Sustain Investor Confidence?
ETHZilla launched its Ethereum treasury strategy on Aug. 18, 2025, following a $565 million capital raise that included Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, and GSR. The firm said it aimed to become a “premier Ethereum-focused accumulation vehicle,” offering public market investors exposure to ether while generating staking yield.
ETHZilla Corporation
Yet the company has since reversed course on accumulation. In October, it sold roughly $40 million in ether to fund a $250 million stock repurchase program, and in December it offloaded 24,291 ETH valued at $74.5 million to redeem senior secured convertible notes.
ETHZilla now holds 69,802 ETH worth about $139 million, according to data from dashboard. That makes it the sixth-largest corporate holder of ether, far behind Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which holds 4,371,497 ETH valued near $8.7 billion.
In December, the company said its future value would be “driven by revenue and cash flow growth from our RWA tokenization business.” It has since acquired 95 manufactured home loans for $4.7 million and two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines for tokenization via Liquidity.io, an SEC-regulated alternative trading system.
Still, cumulative holdings across the top 10 Ethereum treasury companies total 6,101,560 ETH worth more than $12 billion. Investors will now watch whether ETHZilla’s pivot to tokenized real-world assets can stabilize equity performance amid shifting institutional support.
