Written by: AIMan @ Jinse Finance
With the backing of the Ethereum treasury, Ethereum has recently surged, reaching $4,700, just about $150-200 away from ATH.
Especially the two Ethereum treasury heavyweights, 'BitMine and SharpLink', are particularly eye-catching. In just two or three months, BitMine has already held 1.2 million ETH, while SharpLink holds nearly 600,000 ETH. BitMine and SharpLink represent two typical routes of collaboration between Wall Street and Ethereum co-founder ConsenSys founder Lubin.
Apart from the two routes, a new Ethereum DAT company has recently emerged. It is the Nasdaq-listed company 180 Life Sciences, which has now been renamed ETHZilla.
After ETHZilla announced the implementation of the ETH treasury, its stock price surged more than tenfold in one month, with ETH holdings ranking among the top five ETH treasury companies, and a mNAV of up to 6, far exceeding BitMine's 1.8 and SharpLink's 1.07.
Who stands behind ETHZilla? What is special about its ETH treasury strategy? Jinse Finance investigated.
Who is ETHZilla?
ETHZilla started just half a month ago.
On July 29, Nasdaq-listed 180 Life Sciences announced the signing of PIPE financing documents, raising $425 million for the implementation of the ETH treasury strategy. After the transaction is completed, the company will be renamed ETHZilla.
Announced on August 4 that it completed a $425 million private placement. Announced on August 11 that it completed a $156 million convertible bond issuance. The annual interest rate for the first six months of the convertible notes is 0.00%, and for the following six months, it is 4.00% until maturity.
On August 12, ETHZilla announced its purchase of 82,186 ETH at an average price of $3,806, totaling approximately $3.49 billion. ETHZilla currently holds about $238 million in cash equivalents.
It is noteworthy that the participants in the ETHZilla PIPE transaction are numerous, with over 60 institutions and top DeFi founders involved, including Harbour Island, Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, GSR, Omicron Technologies, Konstantin Lomashuk (co-founder of Lido), Sreeram Kannan (founder of Eigenlayer), Mike Silagadze (founder of Ether.fi), Danny Ryan (co-founder of Etherealize), Vivek Raman (co-founder of Etherealize), Sam Kazemanian (co-founder of Frax), Grant Hummer (co-founder of Etherealize), Robert Leshner (founder of Compound), Tarun Chitra (founder of Gauntlet), as well as several other notable founders and leaders in the Ethereum ecosystem.
What makes ETHZilla unique compared to other ETH DATs
1. Peter Thiel holds nearly 30% of ETHZilla
According to SEC disclosure documents, Peter Thiel himself and several funds under his management hold shares in ETHZilla—FF Consumer Growth II (5.8%), The Founders Fund Growth II Management (5.8%), FF Upper Tier GP (5.8%), FF Consumer Growth (1.7%), The Founders Fund Growth Management (1.7%), Peter Thiel (7.5%), totaling up to 28.3% ownership of ETHZilla. Although it states that they do not constitute a 'group of persons acting in concert.'
According to public information, Peter Thiel holds shares in two Ethereum treasury companies. The first is BitMine, controlled by Tom Lee, but SEC filings show Thiel only owns about 9% of BitMine, indicating that his financial investment may be larger.
The second company is ETHZilla, which, unlike BitMine, is held by Peter Thiel for nearly 30% of its shares.
As a top investor in the U.S. and a behind-the-scenes powerhouse in politics, Peter Thiel's deep involvement might be one of the reasons for ETHZilla's mNAV reaching as high as 5.8.
2. Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation join the fray
According to ETHZilla's announcement, Etherealize CEO Vivek Raman will serve as a strategic advisor to ETHZilla, and Etherealize will join forces with leading DeFi builders' alliances to form a DeFi council to provide advice to ETHZilla on how to leverage funds to create excess returns.
All three founders of Etherealize participated in the investment and support of ETHZilla.
Source: IOSG
Behind Etherealize are Ethereum founder Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation.
Etherealize, an Ethereum ecosystem institutional marketing and product department, was established in January 2025 and is dedicated to promoting Ethereum to Wall Street financial institutions. Etherealize accelerates Wall Street's institutional adoption through the following missions: popularizing knowledge of Ethereum as a store of value asset and technology platform among institutions; and connecting institutions to Ethereum by building products that bring assets and users into the Ethereum ecosystem.
According to market rumors, Etherealize was established under the promotion of the Ethereum Foundation. Before its establishment, it received investments from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation. In March 2025, during a period of extremely low ETH prices, a key figure in the Ethereum Foundation, Danny Ryan, who was the chief coordinator of the Ethereum The Merge upgrade, joined Etherealize as a co-founder.
In June 2025, Etherealize published a research report stating that ETH is digital oil, expected to become the infrastructure supporting the global economy, powering the global financial system and the broader digital economy. ETH should be viewed as a core allocation in institutional strategies, especially those prioritizing long-term value creation, technological exposure, and future-oriented financial infrastructures.
3. Focus on DeFi and on-chain strategies
According to ETHZilla, Etherealize will join forces with leading DeFi builders' alliances to form a DeFi council to explore ways to leverage funds to create excess returns. The team members of the DeFi council have extensive experience and are the creators of many key DeFi protocols today (see those DeFi founders involved in the ETHZilla financing).
Electric Capital will act as the external asset manager for ETHZilla and plans to implement a differentiated on-chain yield generation program. This program aims to go beyond traditional ETH staking while maintaining robust risk management, striving to combine staking, lending, liquidity allocation, and customized private agreements.
Conclusion
The three points described in the previous section are precisely what differentiates ETHZilla from other ETH treasury companies.
ETHZilla brings together seasoned Wall Street investors, veteran Ethereum builders, and top DeFi founders under one publicly traded company. Not only is it buying ETH, but it is also focusing on DeFi, deploying a series of Ethereum-driven on-chain strategies to maximize compounding of ETH and increase the value per share of ETH.
With Wall Street and RWA being migrated to the Ethereum blockchain, how to leverage the potential of on-chain yields, ETHZilla may be exploring a new route.
