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- Peter Thiel exits ETHZilla as shares plummet 97% in premarket.
- ETHZilla pivots to RWA tokenization after Ethereum-focused strategy fades.
- Stock repurchase plan follows ETHZilla’s strategic shift away from ETH.
Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire behind Founders Fund, has completely exited his position in Ethereum-focused firm ETHZilla (Nasdaq: ETHZ). Thiel and other related parties divested all their interests in the company according to a recent 13G filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This is an ill-timed action on the part of ETHZilla as the stock is currently trading down an alarming 7% in the premarket activity, and it is now down to approximately 3.20 per share. The price is a mind-blowing 97 percent downward move as compared to the high of ETHZilla, which was at its highest at 107 last August when it announced plans to shift towards a digital asset treasury model.
Thiel started to work with ETHZilla in August 2025, when he, together with Founders Fund, bought out 7.5% of the company. This was announced as ETHZilla was rebranding its former name of 180 Life Sciences Corp., leading to a 90 percent explosion in the share price of the company. The ambitious vision at the time was that ETHZilla was going to be one of the best Ethereum-centered accumulation vehicles to enable direct access to Ethereum (ETH) to public market investors, utilizing staking as a means of yield.
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A Shifting Strategy: ETHZilla Sells Ethereum to Fund New Ventures
Even though ETHZilla has raised more than 60 investors totaling up to 565 million dollars, including such giants as Electric Capital and Polychain Capital, it has changed its priorities. The firm that was initially interested in the accumulation of Ethereum has sold significant parts of the ETH. In October, ETHZilla sold approximately 40 million dollars in Ethereum to finance a 250 million stock buyback program. In December, it subsequently sold another 24,291 ETH, worth 74.5 million, to redeem specific outstanding senior secured convertible notes.
This plan is an indication of the division of the initial concern of ETHZilla to accumulate and stake Ethereum. Instead, the company has shifted to classic financial tricks, such as buying back its shares and paying off its debts. The move to an Ethereum-focused activity begs the question of whether the new direction of ETHZilla will be worthwhile in the long term.
ETHZilla’s New Direction: Real-World Asset Tokenization
The new direction of strategy is the latest change in ETHZilla, which is not concentrated on the principle of cryptocurrency accumulation but on the concept of Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization. The company proclaimed that its future expansion will be based on its RWA tokenization business revenue and cash flow. As such, ETHZilla is currently in the process of purchasing assets to be tokenized, such as a portfolio of manufactured and modular home loans worth $4.7 million that it intends to tokenize via Ethereum Layer 2 technology. Also, ETHZilla has acquired two aircraft engines that have recently been tokenized on the Liquidity.io platform.
ETHZilla is currently the sixth-largest corporate holder of Ethereum, holding 69,802 ETH, which is worth around 139 million dollars. This is, however, still a long way away, yet the industry leader Bitmine Immersion Technologies has over 4.3 million ETH. Although it has a massive position in Ethereum, the recent change of direction of ETHZilla casts some doubts concerning the future of this company in the digital asset market.
With the company venturing into new frontiers in RWA tokenization, how this strategy will unfold will be of interest, and whether the company will be in a position to overcome the colossal loss in its stock value. This changes a significant perspective of the initial vision of ETHZilla and points out the uncertainty surrounding the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.
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