ETHZilla: Deep support from Teal and EF, with mNAV reaching 6

Written by AIMan @ Golden Finance

Thanks to the Ethereum Treasury, Ethereum has recently surged, surpassing $4,700, only about $150-200 away from reaching its all-time high.

BitMine and SharpLink, two major Ethereum treasuries, have particularly shined. In just two or three months, BitMine has accumulated 1.2 million ETH, while SharpLink holds nearly 600,000 ETH. BitMine and SharpLink exemplify the two paths of Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and ConsenSys, on Wall Street.

Beyond these two paths, another Ethereum DAT has recently emerged: 180 Life Sciences, a Nasdaq-listed company now renamed ETHZilla. After ETHZilla announced its ETH treasury implementation, its stock price rose over 10-fold in a month, placing it among the top five ETH treasury companies in terms of ETH holdings. Its mNAV reached 6, far exceeding BitMine's 1.8 and SharpLink's 1.07. Who is behind ETHZilla? What's unique about its ETH treasury strategy? Jinse Finance took a look. Who is ETHZilla? ETHZilla launched two weeks ago. On July 29, Nasdaq-listed 180 Life Sciences announced the signing of PIPE financing documents, raising $425 million to implement its ETH treasury strategy. Following the transaction, the company changed its name to ETHZilla. On August 4, it announced the completion of a $425 million private placement. On August 11, it announced the completion of a $156 million convertible note offering. The convertible notes bear an annual interest rate of 0.00% for the first six months and 4.00% for the next six months until maturity. On August 12, ETHZilla announced the purchase of 82,186 ETH at an average price of $3,806, totaling approximately $3.49 billion. ETHZilla currently holds approximately $238 million in U.S. dollar cash equivalents.

It is worth noting that the ETHZilla PIPE transaction had a large number of participants, with more than 60 institutions and top DeFi founders participating, including Harbour Island, Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, GSR, Omicron Technologies, Konstantin Lomashuk (Lido co-founder, Sreeram Kannan (Eigenlayer founder, Mike Silagadze (Ether.fi founder), Danny Ryan (Etherealize co-founder), Vivek Raman (Etherealize co-founder), Sam Kazemanian (Ether.fi founder, rgb(0, 112, 192);">Frax co-founder), Grant Hummer (Etherealize co-founder), Robert Leshner (Compound founder), Tarun Chitra (Gauntlet founder), and several other prominent Ethereum ecosystem founders and leaders.

What makes ETHZilla unique from other ETH DATs

1. Peter Thiel holds nearly 30% of ETHZilla

According to SEC disclosures, Peter Thiel and several of his funds 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%), and Peter Thiel (7.5%). Together, they hold a whopping 28.3% of ETHZilla's shares. This is despite the statement that they are not "acting in concert." According to public information, Peter Thiel holds stakes in two Ethereum treasuries. The first is BitMine, controlled by Tom Lee. However, SEC filings indicate that Thiel only holds approximately a 9% stake in BitMine, suggesting his financial investment is likely much larger. The second is ETHZilla. Unlike BitMine, Peter Thiel holds nearly 30% of the company's shares. As a top American investor and political operative, Peter Thiel's deep involvement may contribute to ETHZilla's high mNAV of 5.8.

2. Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation Join the Team

According to ETHZilla's announcement, Etherealize CEO Vivek Raman will serve as a strategic advisor to ETHZilla. Furthermore, Etherealize will collaborate with a leading alliance of DeFi builders to form a DeFi Council to advise ETHZilla on how to leverage funds to generate excess returns.

All three founders of Etherealize have participated in investing in and supporting ETHZilla.

Source: IOSG

AndEtherealize is backed by Ethereum founder Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation.

Etherealize , an institutional marketing and product department for the Ethereum ecosystem, was established in January 2025 and is dedicated to promoting Ethereum to Wall Street financial institutions. Etherealize's mission is to accelerate institutional adoption on Wall Street by: educating institutions about Ethereum as a store of value asset and technology platform; and connecting institutions to Ethereum by building products that bring assets and users into the Ethereum ecosystem. According to market rumors, Etherealize was founded at the urging of the Ethereum Foundation. Prior to its founding, Etherealize received investment from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation. In March 2025, during an extremely low ETH price, Danny Ryan, a prominent figure at the Ethereum Foundation and lead coordinator of Ethereum's Merge upgrade, joined Etherealize as a co-founder. In June 2025, Etherealize published a research report arguing that ETH is digital oil, poised to become the infrastructure underpinning the global economy, powering the global financial system and the broader digital economy. ETH should be considered a core asset allocation within institutional strategies, particularly those prioritizing long-term value creation, technological exposure, and future-oriented financial infrastructure. 3. Focus on DeFi and On-Chain Strategies According to ETHZilla, Etherealize will collaborate with a coalition of leading DeFi builders to form the DeFi Council to explore how to leverage capital to generate alpha. The DeFi Council team members possess extensive experience, having founded many of today's key DeFi protocols (see the DeFi founders who participated in ETHZilla's funding round). Electric Capital will serve as ETHZilla's external asset manager and plans to implement a differentiated on-chain yield generation program. The initiative aims to go beyond traditional ETH staking while maintaining robust risk management, and strives to combine staking, lending, liquidity provisioning, and customized private protocols. The three points described in the previous section are precisely what distinguish ETHZilla from other ETH treasury companies. ETHZilla brings together veteran Wall Street investors, veteran Ethereum builders, and top DeFi founders under a publicly listed company. It not only purchases ETH but also focuses on DeFi, deploying a series of Ethereum-powered on-chain strategies to maximize ETH compounding and increase the value of each share. With Wall Street and RWAs moving to Ethereum on-chain, ETHZilla may be exploring a new path to capitalize on the potential for on-chain returns.