Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund sells its stake in Ethereum company ETHZilla

February 18, 2026

Billionaire Peter Thiel and his investment entity, Founders Fund, have recently divested their stake in ETHZilla, an Ethereum company. This decision was reflected in a Form 13G submission to the SEC, indicating a complete exit from the company.

Following this development, ETHZilla experienced a drop in its share price during pre-market trading, with shares declining by over 3% to $3.51. This decrease marks a substantial decline from its peak value of $107, amounting to a 97% decrease.

Thiel’s involvement with ETHZilla began in August 2025 when his entities acquired a 7.5% stake in the company. This acquisition coincided with the rebranding of biotech company 180 Life Sciences, which was transitioning towards digital assets. The news of Thiel’s support led to a significant 90% surge in stock prices within a single trading session.

Initially, ETHZilla launched a “treasury strategy” that aimed to raise capital by accumulating Ethereum, attracting investments from notable firms like Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, and GSR. This strategy positioned the project as a traditional finance tool for Ethereum accumulation with potential staking yields.

However, the company underwent a strategic shift from asset accumulation to divestment:

In October, ETHZilla sold $40 million worth of Ether to finance a $250 million stock buyback program.
In December, the firm further sold $74.5 million worth of Ether to fulfill convertible bond obligations.

Notably, the company realigned its focus towards the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) in December, anchoring its market capitalization to revenue growth in this sector. Commencing operations in this direction, ETHZilla took significant actions:

Acquisition of a mortgage portfolio involving 95 loans on modular homes for $4.7 million, intending to tokenize these assets on the Arbitrum L2 network with a targeted annual yield of 10.36%.
Purchase of two CFM56-7B24 aviation engines to tokenize on the Liquidity.io platform, a SEC-regulated trading system.

As a noteworthy corporate holder of Ethereum, ETHZilla currently holds 69,802 ETH valued at around $140 million, positioning it as the sixth-largest entity in terms of ETH holdings. This figure is substantially lower than the top holder, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, owning 4.37 million ETH valued at approximately $8.8 billion. Collectively, the top ten Ethereum holding companies possess reserves exceeding 6.1 million ETH, valued at over $12 billion.

In his remarks, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao emphasized the burgeoning potential of tokenization within the cryptocurrency industry as an emerging avenue for growth.