After a few short months, Peter Thiel appears to be dropping his Ethereum bet.
The billionaire tech founder and investor exited his position in one of the largest Ethereum corporate treasuries, filings on Tuesday show.
ETHZilla, formerly a biotech company called 180 Life Sciences, closed a $425 million private placement in August to pivot to a very different model.
Instead of developing pharmaceuticals, the company began buying Ether tokens en masse, becoming one of the largest publicly traded corporate Ethereum treasury firms.
Now, it looks to have lost the backing of one of its most influential investors.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Thiel and his investment vehicles, including Founders Fund, sold their entire 7.5% stake at the end of 2025.
Stock in ETHZilla, which trades under the ticker ETHZ, dropped more than 8% on Tuesday. It has since recouped some of those losses and trades at $3.5 on the Nasdaq.
ETHZilla and Founders Fund did not immediately respond to comment.
Tokenised jet engines
Crypto corporate treasury companies, of which Michael Saylor’s Strategy laid the groundwork, have fallen on hard times.
Between 2024 and early 2025, dozens of publicly traded companies quickly pivoted to raising billions of dollars to buy cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
As of December, however, only one company had outperformed the S&P 500.
When ETHZilla announced its $425 million raise in August, the company’s stock hit a record high of $174. Today, ETHZ has cratered more than 97%, according to the Nasdaq.
To be sure, the Ethereum treasury company hasn’t given up yet.
On February 5, it announced it would advance on its tokenisation ambitions after acquiring a portfolio of home loans. The company plans to turn these loans into tokens on an undisclosed layer 2 network as early as the end of the month.
Equally, on February 12, ETHZilla moved to tokenise two commercial jet engines acquired by the company for $12.2 million.
Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? Get in touch at [email protected].
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